


How to Save A Family

by oncethrown



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Clave Bullshit, F/M, Gen, Lydia Branwell & Alec Lightwood Friendship, M/M, Magnus Bane and Max Lightwood First Meet, Maryse Lightwood Being A Mess, Max Lightwood Lives, Robert Lightwood Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 64,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncethrown/pseuds/oncethrown
Summary: Shadowhunters don't really have scandals. Infractions that the law can't punish are usually buried by parents and commanders, or prevented by the ever present fear of endangering your family's reputation and your own prospects. Alec Lightwood knew all of this. He'd thought about it every day of his engagement, and all the way up to the altar. When Magnus Bane walked in, Alec's resolve had evaporated. The trouble his choice caused won't. **The Lightwoods deal with the fallout of Alec's very public coming out. Maryse tries to shield her family from the Clave while her marriage falls apart.





	1. Tactical Retreat 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off, thanks to my amazing betas @obsessivedebauchery, @thelushfiles and @bloodyinspiredmalec!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, thanks to my amazing betas @obsessivedebauchery, @thelushfiles and @bloodyinspiredmalec!
> 
> I wanted to explore what happens around the first person to every publically come out in an entire culture, especially a warrior culture with arranged marriage customs, inarguable laws, a corrupt governemnt, and a totally legitimate need for everyone to have as many kids as they can. 
> 
> I also really wanted to spend some time with Maryse Lightwood, my problematic fave. Because she's a fascinating character full of tragedies and accomplishments. She's from a disgraced family, a former terrorist, turned mother, turned snitch, turned government official, who rebuilt her life from total disaster only to watch it all crumble around her again because the culture she grew up in completely fucked her up and now she's stuck in a few layers of impossible situations. She's terrible and interesting, and I love that. 
> 
> I get that spending time in the head of a homophobic character is not everyone's deal, so if you haven't read my stories before and aren't sure about me, please check out Never Stand Between Two Mirrors, Five Times Alec Lightwood Almost Lost His Virginity (and one time he learned virginity was imaginary and stupid), or Alec, Interrupted. I've got a few smutty Malec one shots laying around too if that's more your bag. 
> 
> If you have read my stories before... trust me. I'm going somewhere with this.

Sometimes there was nothing more you could do, Maryse reminded herself as she retreated back to her bedroom.

 

You hit a point where you were too emotional to push it down. Too tired to make good calls. A warrior recognized that reality, and submitted to it. Personally, she’s never been good at it.

 

But it had been too long a night to fight back now. Too many shocks in a row: Jace willingly leaving with Valentine, Clary and her little vampire friend pissing off the head of the New York Vampire Clan, Camille Belcourt on the loose, Hodge a traitor.

 

And Alec.

 

That was the one she still coudn’t believe. In a night full of surprises, that was the one that, even as she washed her face and changed out of the dress she’d chosen for his wedding, she couldn’t recover from. For twenty one years, Alec had been reliable, dutiful, and dedicated to technical perfection. To embracing his heritage as a Lightwood and a Shadowhunter. He may have lacked Jace’s raw talent, his artistry, but Alec had also lacked Jace’s recklessness.

 

Until, apparently, the most important day of his life. How was she supposed to see her oldest son now? After what he had done?

 

Maryse removed her jewelry, tucking it away in the top drawer of her vanity before taking out a bottle of makeup remover and a handful of cotton balls. Her eyes are red rimmed already, and have only been getting redder since she closed the bedroom door behind her. She’s almost too overwhelmed to cry. Everything she had been working for since the day Alec was born was gone now.

 

Everything.

 

The second chance she turned herself in for 20 years ago. The Institute her children would never inherit now. The name of Lightwood that she knew _she_ had disgraced, but had been fighting to make good again for Alec and Isabelle and Max and Jace.

 

And Alec— _Alec_ — had, with one unforgivable lapse in judgement, and a singularly selfish decision, blown it away in an instant.

 

Her fury at him still burned brightly, but the longer the night had gone on— and the more that had gone wrong, more of that anger had turned inward.

 

Maryse wiped a cotton ball along her eye, a small trickle of tears helping to dissolve her eyeliner.

 

She knew she wasn’t entirely free of the blame, and the knowledge was _so frustrating_. She worked so hard to keep her family protected, and together and she’d let herself get distracted and involved in her own personal problems and just assumed that Alec would take up the burden she hadn’t been able to shoulder lately. Then she had ignored the fact that he hadn’t been able to.

 

Alec had been erratic for weeks. Unnapproved missions. Bringing mundanes into the Institute. Insufficient justification for fraternizing with werewolves in general and Lucien Graymark in particular. Sloppy and sometimes outright incorrect paperwork. He’d been moody and frankly— absent. More than once recently, Alec had failed to answer her phone calls. Some times he called back hours after the fact. Once or twice he hadn’t called back at all. She knew he’d slept at that warlock’s lair. Given the events of today, the Angel only knew what else he’d done there.

 

But he’d still been _Alec_. He’d still been doing _what_ was expected of him, even if he hadn’t been doing it _as_ expected. When he’d proposed to Lydia, Maryse had considered interceding. That had been the point where Alec’s recent inconsistency had really gone over board. It wasn’t like him to be outwardly defiant.

 

Maryse had let it go because he was right. Lydia came from a good family, she had an important position within the Clave and there _were_ historical alliances between the Branwells and the Lightwoods. Besides— the two of them had noticeable similarities. Similar values. Lydia may have been a threat to Maryse’s legacy and a thorn in her side, but she was also dutiful and reliable.

 

And after the accusations Robert had hurled at her when Lydia and Alec had announced their engagement, Maryse had thought that she should probably just count it as a blessing that the extent of Alec’s only instance of rebellion was still to find a suitable alliance for himself. But mostly, Maryse had hoped that Alec’s stubborn defense of his choice of bride had stemmed not just from anger, but from that fact that he genuinely seemed to _like_ the girl.

 

It was difficult to be your children’s mother and their commander. Maryse knew it more than most. Sometimes there was no line to walk. A mother can’t send her children into battle. A commander must. A mother wants her children to be happy, and a commander wants her soldiers to be effective. If Alec had found a girl that could solidify his family’s position, improve his career prospects, and make him happy? That was everything a Shadowhunter mother could ask for. Even if she didn’t love the idea of bringing Lydia Branwell into their family while the girl seemed to be actively trying to unravel Maryse’s own claim to the Institute she’d headed for two decades, she’d done nothing to stop the marriage. Not when it looked like Lydia could offer Alec respect, success, and happiness.

 

Not when those were the things that had so eluded her.

 

The bedroom door opened, just as she slipped out of her dress and stood in the middle of the floor wearing more restrictive lingerie than she’d ever imagined wearing as a young woman. Robert walked in. His eyes widened as he saw her, and he looked away.

 

“He’s here.”

 

Maryse let loose an angry huff. “Who is where?”

 

Robert tugged at the cuffs of his suit. “Alec. He’s in the Institute.”

 

Maryse stood up straighter, slotting the shoulder straps of her dress over the hanger she’d pulled it off of. “As opposed to?”

 

“Never mind,” Robert sighed before going into the bathroom to undress.

 

Maryse undid the various hooks and latches of her undergarments.

 

She _had wondered_ about Alec. He was different from Jace in so many ways. He’d always been a bit of a… what was the mundane term? A Momma’s Boy. Maybe that was her fault too. Alec had been the lynchpin keeping she and Robert together when he was born. Maybe she’d been overly… involved. But it wasn’t just that. There had always been an edge to Alec, especially around Jace. An indefinable something that Maryse didn’t remember from the boys of her own childhood. For the last few years, as Jace and Isabelle had started to get themselves into unnecessary trouble when it came to the opposite sex, Maryse had started to suspect that Alec might have foibles of some sort. But even his sharpest idiosyncrasies had never made her believe that, when the time came, Alec would fail to do his duty.

 

Even with the knowledge that Alec had failed to finish forms in order to stay at Magnus’s. Even knowing a few of the details from Magnus’s long and sordid history, and even with the way Isabelle had opposed even the idea of any marriage at all for Alec— Maryse would never have been able to imagine the boy she’d held in her arms as her family escaped Idris would shame their entire family by kissing a warlock like that— over and over again, in front of half the Clave.

 

Magnus Bane.

 

That was the key. Isabelle had encouraged Alec’s rebellion. Lydia had allowed it. But Magnus Bane had instigated it. And worst of all, he was a devious, lascivious, monster. He either knew full well, or didn’t care, that when he was finished enjoying the novelty of Alec, Alec would be even more degraded than he was now.

 

Maryse finished sliding her pajamas over her head as the bathroom door opened and Robert came out in his ratty flannel pajama pants and a white ribbed tank top. He paused, as though he was going to say something else to her, but stopped, instead going to their bed and making a show of encapsulating himself on his side, under his share of the blankets.

 

Maryse folded herself onto her own side of the bed, turning out the light before she brushed away another errant tear.

 

This wasn’t over yet. Tonight she had taken all the heartbreak she can manage. Tomorrow she would get to work. She has never been the type of woman to give up, no matter the odds.

 

She would find a way to save her family.

 

Tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

 

Maryse felt less prepared for the day than she had hoped when she woke in the morning. Part of that could be attributed to Robert’s snoring— too many loud random bursts to sleep through, as always— the rest to dreams. Of Jace, drowning or of Alec behind bars, Magnus Bane wearing the key around his neck. Imogene Herondale in her Inquisitor’s robes, booting the lot of them out of the Institute and into the street.

 

Maryse had given up on sleeping just before dawn, and gone to the kitchen to make coffee and prepare herself for the onslaught of meetings the day was guaranteed to bring on. The coffee didn’t do much to wake her up, and it took her a few minutes to force down a granola bar. She still felt a little full from the wedding dinner last night, but there was no telling what the day would bring and if she would be able to eat anything until dinner.

 

Alone in the kitchen, she coudn’t stop herself from replaying every word she and Alec spoke to each other last night.

 

Foolish. All of them. She knew better than to let her emotions get the better of her that way. She could hardly blame Alec for ignoring her. In the objective light of day it was so much easier to think of all the logical, clear concerns she should have voiced. All the thoughts that she knew here son wasn’t stupid enough to overlook. All the questions that she should have asked to make sure he was okay.

 

Have you thought about the consequences of your actions?

 

Did you drink anything he gave you? Eat anything? Wear any jewelry, or even cologne that might have been enchanted?

 

It might not even be Magnus’s sole fault. When the hierarchy in an Institute started to shake, all kinds of people tried to take advantage of a fall. Lydia could have been part of this. Raj. Anyone with an ear for gossip and a link to the Clave.

 

And all of these things— all of them— at least worked toward answering the key question from this whole disaster:

 

Why not just call off the wedding?

 

An arranged marriage could be terrifying. And Maryse wasn’t foolish enough to discount how much of Alec proposing to Lydia had been to spite she and Robert for their involvement with the circle. He very well could have been getting cold feet. That could have been exaggerated easily by anything Magnus had said or done.

 

Cold feet happened. They were expected. They could be worked around. The amount of whispers that might have been caused by Alec simply asking to delay the wedding for a few weeks would have been minimal. There were a thousand things they each could have said. Alec and Lydia could have both pretended to be entertaining another offer. Maryse and Robert could have pretended to forbid the match. Given the suddenness of the marriage they could have even just let it be known that they thought they were moving too fast and wanted to make sure they were really suited to each other.

 

Why not save all of them the humiliation?

 

Maryse felt herself getting overwhelmed again and tried to push all the emotions back down.

 

She couldn’t let herself be too upset right now. There was too much to be done. She had to make sure that Alec wasn’t enchanted. Make sure Lydia wasn’t part of a plot to shame the Lightwoods out of power for generations to come. And just try to hold her head high as the whispers and sniggers spread throughout the Institute is going to make the day draining and endless.

 

She wouldn’t make the same mistakes today, she vows as she pours herself a new cup of coffee. Today, she will be calm and reasonable, and prepared to go slow. Alec hadn’t gotten to the point he was at yesterday suddenly, she wouldn’t be able to walk him back suddenly. This was going to take work and a re-establishment of trust.

 

And then she would just have to convince him not to pursue anything with Magnus Bane, find a way to excuse the whole mess in the eyes of the Clave, and presumably though hard work, and at least one miracle, re-establish Alec as a good candidate for a husband.

 

Maryse rubbed the spot between her eyes and took a sip from her coffee. Even on paper, it didn’t sound simple to just recover Alec from the biggest mistake of his life. At least the boy was handsome. Unfortunately, he had made damn sure that was the only thing currently going for him.

 

She left the kitchen to check in with the team she’d left on night duty and see if anything of note had happened in the night. The two young men placed on guard exchanged a glance, mouths open.

 

How were so many people in this Institute so guileless? Maryse wondered to herself before demanding, “What?”

 

The younger of the two brought his hands together in his lap. “Well. No activity indicating demons, or downworlders around the Institute and nothing that would be cause to worry that Valentine had eyes on the place or any intention to attack.”

 

“But?” Maryse prompted the young man.

 

“Well. You should probably know that Alec left.”

 

“Late,” the other man added.

 

“With a bag.” The younger of the two was obviously suppressing a smirk as he said it.

 

“And you didn’t think to stop him?” She asked, trying and failing to keep a growl out of her voice.

 

Both men shrugged. “There were no restrictions placed on his movement.”

 

Panic rose in Maryse’s chest and she did her best to not let any of it work its way into her face. Just as she told herself that there was no reason to think that Alec had done anything as crazy as run off, the cameras outside the door picked up a light shimmer.

 

The shimmer turned purple and both the shadowhunters in front of her sniggered as the cameras showed Alec stepping out of a portal, answering the question of just where in the hell he had gone in the middle of the night.

 

Both young men must have noticed the expression on Maryse’s face, because they stopped laughing, but Maryse was certain that only she saw the look on Alec’s face.

 

A wide smile.

 

For a moment, at least. So short a moment, Maryse wondered if she imagined it. But no. It was there. Any doubt in her mind was erased as she watched the way Alec’s face harden into determination as he looked up at the Institute door and walked inside.

 

Part of her was angry that he couldn’t have done that yesterday. Grit his teeth and done what he needed to do and saved them all this mess. But another part of her wondered how long it’s been since she saw that sort of a smile on Alec’s face.

 

Alec appeared at the entrance to the Control Room and froze for a moment before jerking forward, like puppet on uncertain strings. He marched toward Maryse and landed in front of her steadily.

 

“Is Lydia awake?” He demanded brusquely.

 

“I haven’t checked yet. No one’s said anything to me about it.”

 

“Any word on Jace? Has Hodge been questioned yet?”

 

His tone was sharp and surprisingly uncompromised. He sounded like as much of a leader as he was before all this nonsense with Clary Fray and then Magnus Bane started.

 

“No,” Maryse answered. “I requested a report be submitted to us after Hodge is questioned, but I haven’t gotten a reply back yet. “

 

“Jace?” Alec asked again.

 

“No one knows more about what happened to Jace than you do.”

 

Alec’s eyes narrowed. “When they ask me for my testimony, I’ll give it.”

 

A silence fell between them. By the time Maryse realized it was supposed to be expectant, it turned cold.

 

Alec licked his lips and nodded. “I’m going to go check on Lydia.” Without another word, or even a backward glance, he marched off.

 

Maryse turned to the two men on guard duty, and glared at them both until the smirks slid off their faces.

 

“Your shift has just been extended through lunch,” she announced, before heading back to her office.


	2. Resources and Retaliations

Maryse stood outside the sickbay door organizing her thoughts, her paperwork and her expression, in that order. After a very long morning, which had included making a dozen phone calls related to finding Jace, and receiving two calls of condolence over Alec’s behavior at the wedding, Maryse had finally decided that it was in her best interest, for the time being, to make Lydia her ally. It was all too easy to imagine the Clave ordering interrogation after interrogation about the events of last night. Hodge’s betrayal was going to call Robert and Maryse’s role in the loss of the cup into question. The fact that Jace had willingly gone with Valentine looked even worse.

 

But Lydia had been attacked in the act of returning the cup to the Clave. While the link that the wedding would have created had been destroyed, at least _Lydia_ hadn’t been responsible for the disastrous end to the wedding. The blame there could be spread around. They could say that the Fairchild girl and her vampire friend had filled Alec’s head with Mundane nonsense. Alec had been spending a lot of time around Lucien Graymark while out on missions lately, and he was highly distrusted by the Clave. Enchantment still hadn’t been ruled out. The important part was that, among the guests, it hadn’t looked like Lydia was choosing to end the wedding before she got caught up with traitors. Lydia looked totally innocent in the whole ordeal and like she supported the Lightwoods.

 

Having Lydia Branwell on their side would be their only chance to keep the Institute. After the girl was humiliated in front of the Clave last night, and then attacked, she was probably not feeling very friendly toward any of them.

 

Maryse knocked, and waited for the “Come in!”

 

To her surprise, Lydia wasn’t alone in the sickbay.

 

The girl was sitting up in bed, wearing a printed silk robe belted around her waist, and covered with a duvet someone must have retrieved from her room. The bandages on her head had been changed and she had a mug of tea folded between her hands.

 

Alec was at her bedside, holding his own tea mug.

 

Both of them looked up at her, silently. She was clearly intruding on a conversation not meant for her ears.

 

“Alec,” Maryse heard herself say. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

 

“He thought I’d appreciate the company,” Lydia supplied, with a carefully constructed smile.

 

Maryse and her son looked at each other, and Maryse saw the way his expression changed, like a door slowly swinging shut. The waiting expression, with just a little bit of fear around the edges, hardened and closed off.

 

“I came by to thank her for what she did for me last night,” he said in a clear, self-contained voice. “And to bring her some tea Magnus said would help with the swelling and the soreness.”

 

Lydia’s diplomatic smile didn’t move an inch as Alec made these announcements, turned from Maryse to Lydia and moved his hand across the duvet. He took Lydia’s hand gently in his own.

 

“I’ll come check on you later,” Alec told her. His voice was soft as he addressed her and Maryse saw him squeeze Lydia’s hand as he stood up. “Maybe find one of those candy bars you wanted.”

 

Lydia laughed. “Thank you.”

 

Alec let go of Lydia’s hand and turned toward Maryse and the door behind her. He only looked at her for a brief moment before walking past her and letting himself out. Maryse pulled in a steadying breath, and pushed the flash of hurt away. She lifted the folder in her hands up for Lydia to see.

 

“You strike me as the type who prefers to keep busy while recovering,” Maryse announced in the careful, neutral tone she had been practicing. “I’ve brought you Institute reports, and the Clave is requesting a written and signed report from you detailing anything you can remember about what happened between you and Hodge a few nights ago. We’ve already sent them the tape and informed them that you are recovering from your injuries.”

 

Lydia reached out for the file, and Maryse handed it to her.

 

“Is there anything else?” Lydia asked.

 

“This should be all the paperwork,” Maryse replied evenly.

 

Lydia sighed and set the folder on her nightstand. “Maryse, I was talking about Alec. What are we going to do about Alec?”

 

A blankness, not an absence, but more like a bomb of white noise went off in Maryse’s head as her mind filled suddenly and fully with thought and emotion. She struggled to bring it down to just a bright buzz before answering.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Lydia closed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Maryse, the window for damage control here is very, very small, and your family, and this Institute are dealing with a very, very _big_ disaster. What Alec did is… unprecedented.”

 

“Unprecedented?” Maryse huffed. “Unprecedented? He… in front of some of the most prominent people in the Clave, stormed down that aisle and defied every Law we hold—“

 

“No,” Lydia cut her off, still completely calm. “He didn’t. There are no laws anywhere that specifically mention anything Alec did. There is no legal case against him.”

 

“Do you think that’s going to matter when the Clave comes for us?”

 

“No, of course not,” Lydia said. “That’s the conversation I’m trying to have with you. You need to get yourself under control and we— all of us— need to get to work fixing this problem before it consumes this entire Institute. You know the Clave isn’t just going to let Alec go.”

 

Maryse gritted her teeth and did her best to force down her anger, but still couldn’t keep herself from adding, “Let him go the way you did at the altar?”

 

Lydia’s still face flushed, and Maryse was savagely glad to have cost the girl her composure, even for a moment.

 

“I believe I did the right thing,” Lydia replied.

 

“Right for who?”

 

Lydia brought a hand to her temple. “We can’t be distracted with finger pointing right now, Maryse. We need a meeting, we need discussion, we need to start formulating a strategy. If we don’t get on top of this thing first we’ll be at the mercy of the Clave.”

 

“The mercy of the Clave?” Maryse laughed. “I think we have plenty of time to figure out what your real priorities are before we all team to… What? Stop the Clave?”

 

“Fine,” Lydia huffed. “Let’s just get this over with. What are you accusing me of?”

 

“You could have prevented all of this and you didn’t. You encouraged him.” She felt her heartbeat race as she spoke, and stopped herself before she lost any more control. “You gave him a charming smile and a kind word and sent him down the aisle to that warlock. Why? And don’t tell me that you thought it was the right thing to do. Since you arrived in New York you’ve usurped me, put my daughter on trial for treason, and destroyed my son’s reputation. You’re clearly ambitious, and you’re chipping away the Lightwood claim to this Institute one piece at a time.”

 

“Says the woman who killed off the the Whitelaws to free up this Institute!”

 

Maryse reeled backward. The words were like a slap. She stared, open mouthed at Lydia, watching her cheeks flush red and her cool blue eyes turn to ice. Maryse fumbled for words before giving up and storming out of the sickbay, heading straight to her office.

 

She threw herself down in her chair, gulping down cold coffee from the mug she’d left on the desk.

 

That information was… in limited circulation. The things she’d done with the Circle, when she was young, when they were all young and feeding off each other and trying to fight alongside a man they truly believed would make them better, make them safer, help them take back their lives and all Shadowhunter lives from the indifference of the Clave… talking about any of those things had been banned for so long.

 

So long that she sometimes, could almost forget she’d really done them.

 

Her hand shook as she tried to down more coffee, bring herself back together and find a way to move forward. She nearly managed it. She forced her erratic breathing back into heavy, deep gulps of air. She dabbed away the tears at the corners of her eyes until the tissue came away dry.

 

And just when she was ready to move on to some daily paperwork, and let herself pretend for a little while that today was just another day and that rock bottom wasn’t getting deeper by the hour— the fire message came.

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay. Okay. Stop,” Isabelle huffed, waving her hand in front of her and rolling her eyes a little. “You’re forgetting the basics. This has to be about technique, not just power. Especially when you’re starting training so late in life.”

 

Clary threw her bow staff aside, and Isabelle watched it roll away with a raised eyebrow. “You okay?” She asked with a tone and a raise of the eyebrow that she hoped clearly conveyed that she expected the answer to be “no”. Clary looked from Isabelle to the staff rolling across the training room floor.

 

“No, I’m not okay,” Clary answered. “Jace went off with Valentine, and he’s my brother, and my mother…”

 

Isabelle waited patiently while Clary fought for words. It was a skill she had perfected while dating Meliorn (and dealing with everyone’s reactions to her dating Meliorn). When people’s emotions were high, you had to wait for them to give you words. You learned so much more of what they really thought than you could when you tried to give them words.

 

“I’ve never been angry with my mother like this,” Clary finally said. She sagged, like an understuffed pillow, and retrieved the bow staff from the floor.

 

“It’s okay to be angry with you mother,” Isabelle said, twirling her own staff in her hands. “Believe me, I’m an expert at it.”

 

“It’s different. My mom… it’s always been me, my mom, and Luke. Always. And I… I thought we were this little unorthodox happy family. The night everything changed was my birthday. Luke got me spray paint so I could paint Simon’s van, and we were all going to plan dinner and cake and… regular birthday stuff together. And then…” She waves her hand around the Institute. “Demons. People that no one else could see hacking people up in a club. And it turns out I’m not entirely human… and neither was my mom. Or Luke. And now Simon isn’t either and she… I mean. I understand that she couldn’t have told me when I was young. But… something. She could have told me something!”

 

Isabelle tapped her bow staff against her foot. “She was trying to protect you.”

 

“And now my best friend is a vampire, my apartment burnt down, I spent most of the last few weeks thinking that Luke hated me, I have… ongoing issues with my missing brother I never knew about and a lot of my memories are lost to a demon forever.”

 

“Well… I didn’t say she did a great job.”

 

Clary looked up at her and laughed, just a little. “I’ve been so focused on saving her, I wasn’t even thinking about all this other stuff. And now she’s back and it’s like… you know when you work yourself so hard at school and then as soon as break starts you get really sick?”

 

Isabelle shook her head.

 

“Right. I forgot.” Clary shrugged. “I’m letting everything hit me now. And I’m furious with her and I’m angry with myself for being angry, because I should be happy she’s okay. But I just keep thinking— what’s the point in even asking her about everything that’s going on? Can I believe anything she tells me?”

 

“You can believe what she tells you,” Isabelle says. “But… you might need to accept that she won’t tell you everything.”

 

“How do you know that?” Clary asked.

 

Isabelle looked down at the training room floor, and tapped her bow staff against her shoe a few more times before answering. “Because that’s what Shadowhunter mothers are like.”

 


	3. Allies and Deserters

She was so young, Jocelyn found herself marveling as she watched Lydia Branwell take her place at the head of the table. She was compact, but muscular. Beautiful, cold and focused. She was only a few years older than Clary. A few years older than Jocelyn had been during the uprising. The same light lace of old scars that Jocelyn wore on her own body filled the girl’s skin like words in a book. 

 

And over the scars, stark black Marks. 

 

Marks Jocelyn had sworn her daughter would never see. Never learn. Never wear. 

 

What a fool she had been. 

 

Even as she’d been wiping Clary’s memory and trying to dull her Sight, she had known it was a temporary solution. Luke had told her she couldn’t keep it up forever. So had Magnus, Dot, and even Alaric. But Jocelyn hadn’t been willing to listen. Everyone who had been telling her that she couldn’t rely on magic had understood, at least to some degree, that she wasn’t just protecting Clary from Valentine. She had been trying to protect Clary from all of it. The anger of the Downworld. The arrogance of the Clave. The pain. The fear. The death. 

 

The way being part of the Shadowhunter society robbed you of your freedom to be anything other than what the Clave wanted you to be. To want anything other than what the Clave thought you should want. 

 

But Jocelyn had lost her nerve and let her daughter go out with Simon that night. Valentine had come for her, as she had always known he would, and now, here they all were. 

 

Nine people, sitting around a table, brainstorming battle strategy because Alec Lightwood had grown up from a head strong baby with a drooling smile, to a head strong young man who had kissed Magnus Bane at his own wedding. Valentine was gaining power, had used an embedded traitor to steal the mortal cup and had abducted one of their own, and in addition to all of those critical, life and death problems, they had to call a meeting to figure out what to do with Alec Lightwood’s breach of outdated ideas, in the middle of Manhattan, where, had he been a mundane, the kiss wouldn’t have even raised eyebrows anymore.

 

It was taking Jocelyn everything she had not to scream. She’d never wanted to see the inside of an Institute ever again, and here she was, sitting with her daughter, who was covered in marks and had a seraph blade on her belt, in a meeting like this. 

 

Next to Luke, with so many more unspoken words than there used to be hanging between them. 

 

“Thank you, everyone, for meeting on such short notice. We don’t have time to mince words, so I won’t,” Lydia announced in a clear voice. “Given everything that has happened at this Institute, we need to anticipate an investigation by the Clave. I believe that our best chance to come out of the investigation without suffering serious consequences, is to make sure we are presenting the most united front we can. I want to make sure that we are all able to speak confidently and honestly about the matters were are most likely to be interrogated about. Namely: Hodge’s role here, the forsaken that was smuggled in with a communication ring, Hodges theft of the mortal cup and his attack on me. Also, the circumstances of Jace Wayland’s abduction.”

 

“And me,” Alec asked. His voice was steady, but Jocelyn could see the way his crossed arms pulled tighter around himself. 

 

“Yes,” Lydia agreed. “You did something our world hasn’t seen before. There’s no roadmap. We’re here to make one, under the assumption that, particularly given what transpired around Isabelle and Meliorn, the Clave will view what happened between Alec and Magnus at the wedding as a problem and attempt to use it against us.”

 

“Wait,” Clary piped up. “We’re here to think of a good excuse for Alec to not have trapped himself in a sham marriage?”

 

“No such thing as a harmless rebellion,” Alec, Isabelle, and Lydia all replied in creepy unison. 

 

Jocelyn met Luke’s eye.  That must have become a saying after they escaped. 

 

Because they escaped. 

 

“That’s sick,” Clary replied. 

 

“Super sick,” Simon agreed. 

 

Alec looked at him, lip curling in what looked an awful lot like disgust. “Why is the vampire here?”

 

“Because he grew up a Mundane. I was hoping he had gay friends. There are no gay— no other gay Shadowhunters. We could use more information.”

 

Simon snorted. “There have to be other gay Shadowhunters. One in ten people are gay.”

 

His announcement was met with a stunned silence. 

 

“Really?” Alec finally asked. 

 

Lydia jabbed her pen in Simon’s direction. “And that’s why he’s here. That’s really good information, Simon.”

 

“I knew that, too” Magnus chimed in. 

 

“And you’re also in the room, Magnus,” Lydia told him in a much less gentle tone than she had used with Simon. “I’ve got a bruise on my head, not brain damage, okay? Everyone is here for a reason. I thought everyone in this room would have valuable things to add to these conversations. Give me a little credit.”

 

It was Robert who finally asked the question that everyone in the small amalgamation of people had been wondering since they sat down and saw the tenth empty chair. “Where is Maryse?”

 

Lydia pursed her lips. “I couldn’t find her and she didn’t answer her phone.”

 

Jocelyn couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the Lightwood siblings out of the corner of her eye. Isabelle, who looked breathtakingly similar to a young Maryse, rubbed her brother’s shoulder, while he fought to keep his face entirely blank. On his other side, Magnus Bane looked sympathetic. A minuscule movement of his arm made Jocelyn think that he was patting Alec’s leg under the table. 

 

Clary and Simon had caught her up on everything that had happened since she’d sunk into her spell, from the night at Pandemonium to Simon being Turned to Alec’s wedding. From everything they’d said— about the Lightwoods, about the Clave, about the Shadow world— it sounded like nothing had changed at all since Jocelyn’s self imposed exile. Everything was only getting worse, and now they were using Valentine’s return to justify it. 

 

It was almost enough to make her wish that she’d stayed enchanted. 

 

**

 

Maryse spent very little time in the Mundane world, as a rule. It was so loud. So jarring. So frivolous. Full of Mundanes, bent over their phones, obsessed with trivial problems. Entirely unaware of the daily sacrifices being made on their behalf. 

 

So very like husbands. 

 

Maryse pulled her coat tighter against the damp breeze and set off down the sidewalk. 

 

She didn’t have a destination in mind. Unless you counted “away.”

 

“Away” was the only important thing. She needed distance, and all of the room to breathe that distance would create. Normally, when she retreated like this, it was to regroup. Create another strategy and find a spring of energy to strike back with. 

 

But with her hand deep in her pocket, still clenched around the fire message, and the weight of everything that had happened still dragging at her, she couldn’t find the will to do anything but get away. She was only going to allow herself a couple hours. Definitely no more than three, but she really needed to be separate from what was happening at the Institute, even for the briefest of recesses.

 

Eventually the wind kicked up enough to turn the air from fresh to biting,and Maryse drifted into a restaurant for lunch. 

 

She stood at the host’s podium for a few moments, taking in the sparse wood and steel decoration of the place before a slender young man appeared in front of her. Maryse took him in, from his polished shoes to his tight jeans, to his lacquered nails, to his carefully combed hair. 

 

“Just one?” he chirped in a pleasant, high pitched voice. 

 

Maryse confirmed and the young man lead her to a small table near one of the large windows. 

 

“Start you with water today?”’

 

“A glass of your house red, please.”

 

“Be right out.”

 

She watched him walk away. His hips swung as he moved and carried his shoulders high and a little too tight, a bit like a ballerina crossing the stage. Maryse shook her head. A Shadowhunter couldn’t be like that. No one would ever respect them. Without respect, there couldn’t be trust, without trust, there couldn’t be leadership, without leadership, there couldn’t be common purpose. It was just that simple.

 

Things were different for mundanes like her effeminate little waiter. She had thought that Alec understood that. She’d learned it growing up, and she’d made damn sure that her children began to understand it when they were young. She’d been trying to protect them from doing something stupid. Like what her brother had done. 

 

Like what Alec had done. 

 

 She had thought that if her children grew up knowing what was expected of them, they wouldn’t have to suffer through giving up any impossible fantasies the way that Maryse had seen other Shadowhunters do, or suffer for failing to do. She’d thought that elliminating those possibilities from the beginning would save her children heartache and humiliation. 

 

She slid her hand into her pocket again, feeling the fire message. 

 

If only heartache and humiliation didn’t ultimately come from the people around you, instead of from within yourself. 

 

When the waiter came back, Maryse ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and took out her phone while she waited for it to be brought out, working her way back to reality as gently as she could manage.  She sent a few emails, arranging to have Max brought back to the Institute. His tenth birthday was coming up. They needed to start preparing for his rune ceremony. It was the appropriate time in his education for him to be continuing it with his family. And even with everything happening at the Institute, it would  be an admission of failure to not bring him home. It would be like announcing to the world that her Institute was too far out of control to handle such a simple, but important ceremony. 

 

She then sent out a few emails inquiring after finding a new tutor to replace Hodge, and made arrangements to have a seraph blade made for Max. He wouldn’t be able to use it for another year at least, but he needed one to have presented to him at his rune ceremony, and trying to pass down one of Jace or Alec’s old ones, which was traditionally acceptable, might get… political in their current circumstances. 

 

By the time her food came out she’d received two more emails from women she’d grown up with, offering their insincere condolences on what had happened to her son. Just what they all needed. For word to spread so fast. 

 

At least there seemed to be some element of propriety and discretion at work. Only the fact that the wedding had ended badly seemed to be making the rounds. She may still be able to work with that. 

 

But her mind wasn’t really on plotting and planning. That impulse was just… muscle memory. She was hiding behind it while part of her tried to process everything that was happening.

 

And that’s when the phone call came through. 

 

**

 

Luke was impressed with all of them. Really. He was. The way Clary fought to make it perfectly clear that Jace had gone with Valentine to save them all. Simon’s disgust with the way Isabelle and Meliorn had been treated. Robert’s fumbling attempts to get on board. Magnus’s restraint. The way Lydia moderated them all, kept the conversation on track, kept emotions as in control as she could. 

 

And he was impressed at how long Alec made it before he finally pushed his chair back from the table. 

 

“I’ll be right back,” Alec announced gruffly. 

 

Magnus caught Alec’s wrist in his hand, and Alec twisted it free. “I just need some air,” he said, already walking away from the table and out of the door. 

 

Luke couldn’t blame the kid. He knew better than anyone how hard it was to suddenly find your whole life redefined by a single moment. Especially when the moment was so fresh. When Luke had been Turned, nothing had felt real for months. There had been a dream like tinge to everything that only made it harder, because Luke had felt like he might wake up at any moment, and have it finally be over. 

 

He couldn’t imagine how much harder it must be for Alec, who had made a choice, not a mistake. Who had gone after something he’d wanted, not been infected with something he’d never thought could happen to him. 

 

Across from Luke, Magnus slumped ever so slightly in his chair. Lydia took the meeting back in hand, directing a question at Magnus about some obscure incident from shadowhunter history before Alec had even walked out the door. 

 

Luke felt a light touch at his wrist. 

 

Jocelyn. 

 

Jocelyn, awake, alive, unhurt, and as strong and beautiful as ever.

 

He knew what this place must being doing to her, and he couldn’t read a line of it in her face. Jocelyn hadn’t considered herself a Shadowhunter in 18 years. But here she was, in the New York Institute, sitting next to Clary, who looked exactly like a young Shadowhunter  next to Isabelle, watching Lydia intently. 

 

And even with all of the things they’d said to each other last night ringing in his head during every single moment of semi-silence, he was still a werewolf, and things were different now. 

 

He looked up at her Jocelyn’s face, alert and with a touch of… anger? No, determination, underneath her almost peaceful expression of fake-polite interest. She raised her eyebrows at him, just a few millimeters, but it was a question he understood. 

 

Like he’d ever been able to say no to her. 

 

“I need to make a phone call actually,” he said, moving away from the table. “Back in five.”

 

It took no time at all to find Alec, he hadn’t gone far. Just around the corner, into the main foyer. He was sitting in one of the pews that ran along the side of the foyer, with his head in his hands. 

 

Luke crossed the foyer as quietly as he could manage, and sat down next to Alec, who didn’t look up. Luke cleared his throat. 

 

“Jocelyn and I used to babysit you, you know.”

 

“Don’t,” Alec replied, not lifting his head. 

 

“Okay.”

 

Alec folded his hands in front of his face and talked into them. “I know you’re trying to help, I just… I have to deal with what’s in front of me right now. I fucked up, and now I have to deal with the consequences.”

 

“You didn’t fuck up,” Luke responded. 

 

Alec finally looked at him, a harsh look, like being stabbed through with icicles. “What I did hurt everyone.”

 

“That sounds like something Maryse would say.” Luke could tell by  the way Alec’s eyes darkened that he was right. “What else were you supposed to do? Lie? Go through with it—“

 

“I could slowed down and thought for two seconds!” Alec barked. “I could have not proposed to Lydia just to piss off my parents like a sulking teenager. I could have dragged out the process of finding a wife for at least a year, probably two and used that time to… figure something out. I could have taken Magnus up on his offer to be discrete. Given myself some room to figure out what I really wanted.”

 

“Alec, I wasn’t at the wedding, but it sounds like you went after exactly what you wanted, and it was Magnus. You seem pretty sure of that now too, and it’s not your fault that the world you’re in isn’t ready for that.”

 

“But if we lose the Institute, and Lydia gets put under suspicion, and the Clave finds the right time to try to decide that I pass privileged information to Magnus? The way they did with Isabelle and Melionr? That’s all going to be my fault.”

 

“Those things aren’t guaranteed to happen, Alec.”

 

“And if they—“

 

“I bet your mother has never let you have much to do with the Blackthorns?” Luke cut him off. “They head up the Institute in Los Angeles. They’ve got a family motto. A Bad Law Is No Law.” Luke watched as Alec’s eyebrows rose. “Been in trouble off and on with the Clave for hundreds of years and have held important positions in the Clave off and on for hundreds of years. There _is_ such a thing as a _productive rebellion_. Showing some basic decency to downworlders used to get people in trouble with the Clave. Any connection at all with the mundane world used to get people in trouble. Things we don’t think about anymore used to be capital offenses.” 

 

Alec watched him for a few moments. “I still shouldn’t have let this get all the way to the wedding. Whatever I was going to do, I shouldn’t have done it like that.”

 

“See, now you’re looking backward, which is exactly what you said you didn’t want to do. And when you were looking forward you were just pulling things out of the mist. Let’s you and me take a second and _look around_ you. There’s a room full of people back there looking for ways to support and protect you.” Luke considered mentioning how important that would have been to him when he was Alec’s age, but decided against it. This wasn’t about him. “And that room full of people are all doing something that pisses off the Clave. And they aren’t all doing it for you. It sounds like Isabelle’s gotten plenty of heat for fraternizing with downworlders. I’m still alive, which isn’t technically against Clave law, but the Clave sure as hell would have preferred it if I’d done the ‘honorable thing’ back in the day. Jocelyn is basically a fugitive, custom dictates that Clary should shun her and no loyal Shadowhunter should talk to her. That isn’t going to happen. And all of you are going to do whatever it takes to get Jace back no matter what it takes. And just cause you’re the first gay Shadowhunter doesn’t mean you’re the only one. Word is going to spread. People who need to hear about you are going to. This is bigger than you.” 

 

Something in that seemed to have reached Alec. He finally lifted himself out of his high shouldered hunch, and leaned back against the pew. He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by a voice behind Luke.

 

“Alexander?”

 

Luke turned to see Magnus, looking less confident than Luke had ever seen him look before. 

 

“Am I interrupting?” he continued. 

 

“No,” Alec answered. 

 

The difference in his tone was clear, but Luke suspected it had more to do with the expression on Magnus’s face than with anything Luke had said to him. 

 

“We’re wrapping up on a plan to go forward. No one wants to agree to it without you.”

 

“Okay. I’ll be in in a—“

 

The front door of the Institute creaked loudly as it opened, and Maryse Lightwood walked through it. She looked over the three of them the way someone looks over mud tracked along a floor they’d just cleaned. 

 

“Lucien,” She said, her voice cold. “Warlock Bane, you both need to leave. Now. Jocelyn too, if she’s here. The Clave is sending an investigator, I was just called. He’ll be here any moment.”

 

“We’re here for an important meeting, Maryse,” Magnus answered immediately, his tone an education in forced politeness. “We are guests of Miss Branwell and we’ve done nothing wrong.”

 

“I won’t be—“ Maryse started, but the flash of purple against the windows told them all it was already too late. The doors opened again, and a young man stepped through. His bright eyes lighted on all of them at once. 

 

“Good afternoon. I’m Clarence Pangborn. Special Envoy from the Clave.”


	4. Tactical Retreat 2

Clave envoys rarely gave notice. Lydia was perfectly aware of that. Marching into the middle of an Institute unannounced was a dominance move. It forced everyone to feel off kilter, while demanding that they cater to your demands. It nearly always helped you learn something you wouldn’t have learned by arriving at a predetermined time.

 

But Clarence Pangborn was bringing it to a whole new level.

 

He’d arrived into the chaos created by his last minute phone call with trunks: four old fashioned steamer trunks, as though his journey here had included being at sea for weeks. He’d brought his own weapons, a laptop and an iPad, and an entire shelf’s worth of books. Also tons and tons of files, papers, and notebooks.

 

And a little girl.

 

She was small, but had to be at least ten years old, judging by the fresh black voyance rune on the back of her hand. She had walked right up to Maryse, jutted out her hand and introduced herself as “Adeline Charlotte Pangborn.” When her confidence had gotten a little bit of a nervous laugh out of Maryse, the little girl had done the exact same thing to everyone standing in the foyer, including Luke, who had tried and failed not to look charmed by her, and Magnus, who had greeted her with the sort of exaggerated dignity Lydia imagined had been reserved for old Queens.

 

Only Simon had thrown Adeline off. She’d gasped when Simon had tentatively taken her small hand into his cold, dead one, and then fumbled to cover her surprise.

 

Adeline Pangborn had brought a bright pink back pack, two slightly more reasonably sized trunks, also screaming pink, and a puppy that was nearly as big as she was.

 

The Pangborns were clearly planning to stay, and Clarence had roped Lydia, Isabelle, Clary, Maryse, and Alec into helping them move in.

 

He had done it effortlessly, with nothing more than a quick announcement that it would be so very appreciated if they could all help him get settled before dinner, which he and Adeline would take early because of the time difference. Lydia had missed how Robert had managed to wriggle his way out of helping, but she had managed to fill Alec in on the plan while the two of them dusted the room that Adeline would be staying in.

 

Alec responded with little more than a grunt after her explanation, and Lydia tried to change the subject.

 

“The Investigator is… not what I expected.”

 

Alec turned, just a little, and gave her a disapproving look.

 

“He doesn’t look old enough to have a ten year old daughter.”

 

“Don’t say it,” Alec replied, with an exasperated sigh. “And don’t expect me to say it.”

 

Lydia turned her eyes back to the dust coated rag in her hand. “I’m sorry. This plan was the best we could do in the time we had. Maybe if we’d had another half hour to work out the kinks something else would have come up.”

 

After a moment of dusting, Alec replied, “I know.” He sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “It’s just… a lot to do so… fast.”

 

“We can’t backtrack now. We all have to move forward as a unit. It’s the best way.”

 

Essentially, what the group had agreed to present to Alec for approval was belligerent supportiveness. No one would ignore what Alec was doing, but no one would… react to it either. It was a plan with pros and cons, and Lydia was aware that all of the cons fell heavily on Alec’s shoulders, but there hadn’t been time to run it past him and now it was the only plan they had.

 

Alec had agreed to her whispers, and then gone silent, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on what he was dusting. Lydia could only assume he was mad at her, which, given the circumstances, was too fucking bad.

 

“Magnus pointed out the flaws to us. He defended you,” Lydia whispered. “I think you should know that.”

 

Alec nodded. “Yeah. I just… I wasn’t ready for this. And I guess… now I have to be.”

 

“Miss Branwell, you’re bleeding!” Clarence announced as he walked into the newly dusted room, his hand clasped with his daughter’s as she walked next to him. The puppy, a huge black ball of fuzz with a bright pink tongue lolling out the front of it, walked behind her obediently.

 

Clarence’s voice was strange. It was hoarse and rough and made him sound like an old man. It was stranger still to hear that voice coming from a man that looked like him. His voice may have been old, but his face was—Lydia wished there was another word— angelic. The description of his looks overall that was most accurate, and that she (and evidently Alec) wanted to avoid using, was “hot.”

 

Clarence Pangborn was _hot_.

 

He’d shown up in a navy fisherman’s sweater and dark, well-fitted jeans. He had put his golden hair back into a short pony tail at the base of his neck, but curled strands were escaping as he carried boxes and unpacked. Lydia had seen several young women in the Institute watching him with interest as he walked by them, and she couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand why.

 

Lydia set her fingers to the knob at the back of her head and brought them in front of her eyes. They were sprinkled with blood. Clarence crossed the room and pulled a clean white handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans. He handed it to her.

 

“Thank you,” Lydia said, setting the handkerchief to her tender head. “I took a serious blow to the head.”

 

“Yes, I read the report. Terrible. Absolutely terrible.” He looked her up and down. “Perhaps you should rest, I’d hate to delay your recovery.”

 

Lydia shook her head. She knew this game too. Looking weak while you were trying to maintain a shaky position of power was career suicide. “You’re very kind, but Alec and I are nearly done here. Would you like to let the kitchen know when you prefer to eat?”

 

“We’re going out to get real New York City pizza,” Adeline informed Lydia and Alec cheerfully. Clarence looked down at her with a fond smile, then looked back up and shrugged. “What’s the use of traveling the world if you never step out of the Institute, right? Miss Branwell, have you partaken of any New York pizza in your time here? We are open to recommendations.”

 

“You can call me Lydia. And no, I’ve been exceedingly busy since I arrived.” She waited for him to make a point of not asking Alec.

 

Clarence continued smiling his white, shining smile. “Yes. I assumed so. Lydia.” He looked around the room, and sighed like a man walking into bright sunshine after a long day of work. “This really is a lovely Institute. Right Adeline?”

 

“Yeah,” the girl responded.

 

“Mr. Lightwood? As a native to New York, do you have a recommendation?”

 

Lydia watched Alec, and wished that he would stop scowling for a few minutes. “Uh. Yeah. Go out to the street, turn left, go three blocks, turn right and then it’s a little ways down. It… I guess it has a name, but it’s you know. One of those hole in the wall places.”

 

Clarence smiled and patted his daughter’s shoulder. “You know, I think the two of us can finish the rest of this up when we get back from dinner.”

 

“You don’t need… anything else from us?” Alec asked, quietly and dubiously.

 

Clarence met his eye. “Oh. The investigation?” He waved a hand dismissively. “I never start with that on the first day. I like to settle in a little first. I will, of course, need to start with some questions about Hodge’s role here tomorrow. He was your tutor, yes?”

 

“Yes,” Alec answered, stone faced.

 

“Then perhaps we can discuss your opinion of him tomorrow, after breakfast.”

 

Alec just nodded. A strange moment of silence passed between the three of them.

 

“I’ll look forward to it,” Alec finally added. “See you tomorrow.”

 

He walked stiffly out of the room, Lydia and Clarence watching him go before Clarence turned back to her.

 

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but it was mentioned in my reports that your wedding was…”

 

“A mistake,” Lydia responded as quickly and calmly as she could manage. “A mistake compounded by poor timing. Once you’ve gotten to test out the local pizza there are more than enough leftovers from the wedding feast to go around.” She laughed and then felt like an idiot. How casual should she be about Alec leaving her at the altar for Magnus?

 

She was, honestly, completely unsure how she really felt about it. She hadn’t had a moment to herself to really process what had happened.

 

God, this was probably only a quarter of what Alec was feeling.

 

Clarence gave her a very… soft look. “Perhaps we’ll find an appropriate time to discuss that as well.”

 

He gave the room another once over, and turned to his daughter. “Come on, darling. Let’s go find some pizza.”

 

* * *

 

 

Alec pulled on his jacket and threw a pair of clean underwear into his overnight bag before zipping it closed. The overnight bag was new; a gift from Magnus. The fact that Alec had come over last night with a single change of clothes and a toothbrush sitting at the bottom of a much-too-large bag had caused Magnus to give Alec a strange look, somewhere between fond and almost disappointed. He’d conjured a nicer bag— a cross body bag made of supple black leather— out of thin air and handed it to Alec like it was nothing.

 

“Ready?” Magnus asked through the phone Alec had pressed tightly against his ear.

 

“Would you be offended if I said no?” Alec asked.

 

“Of course not,” Magnus answered. “I’m sorry you didn’t have more time.”

 

Alec sighed and pressed his palm to his forehead. “It’s… I know I’m being ridiculous. I mean… I kissed you in front of a couple hundred people at the wedding. It’s dumb to pretend people don’t know. People know.”

 

“That doesn’t mean this can’t be hard for you. Or that you don’t deserve to feel…” he could hear Magnus’s lips move as he fumbled for a word. “Exposed.”

 

“Right.”

 

Alec understood Lydia’s justification of the plan. He really did. If everyone acted like everything was totally normal at the Institute, it would start to feel normal. Sneaking around and hiding, especially after what had happened at the wedding, was just going to make it look like he was ashamed, and like everyone should feel like he should deserve to feel ashamed.

 

He wasn’t ashamed, he just wasn’t ready.

 

“Right,” he said again. “Hey, um, I need to go talk to the Investigator for a second. I’ll text you when I’m outside?”

 

“Of course,” Magnus said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

 

They hung up. Alec sucked in a deep breath, tapped his phone against his forehead and pocketed it.

 

He’d let himself think about coming out a handful of times. He’d imagined it as clear, step by step process. Step One: Get over Jace. Step Two: Explore. Make sure he didn’t actually like girls. Step Three: Secretly date a guy. Make sure that pursuing that kind of relationship was actually worth the consequences. Step Four: Tell Isabelle. Step Five: Tell Jace

 

And that’s where the steps had stopped. A boyfriend secret from everyone except Jace and Isabelle.

 

And maybe, out in a vague, grey future, people would just… know. In that quiet sort of way Shadowhunters had of not really acknowledging something. The thing where everyone knew, and you weren’t supposed to talk about it.

 

And now he was going to Magnus’s, before dinner, where everyone would see him, with an overnight bag he clearly couldn’t afford slung around him. And when he got to the front yard, he was going to meet Magnus, kiss him in full view of the security cameras, and be portaled back to his loft.

 

Sure, a couple people had seen him leave for Magnus’s last night. His mother had seen him get portaled back this morning. But it was different. Tonight they were _going out on a date._ And then Alec was going to stay over. And then he was going to come back in time for his meeting with Clarence Pangborn.

 

Last night he hadn’t been able to sleep, and Magnus had texted him late asking him how he was doing, and Alec had made… not a joke. Sort of an… observation that hadn’t been meant to be as serious as Magnus had taken it, about how he should try to get to sleep before the Clave swept in and carted him off to the City of Bones.

 

And Magnus had told Alec that he was welcome to come over. Even if it was just because he wanted to get out of the Institute. As soon as Magnus had opened up the possibility, Alec realized just how badly he wanted that. He’d let Magnus cajole him a little bit, but he’d gone to Brooklyn, and he’d slept like a rock.

 

In the morning, Magnus had made him breakfast, just like the last time he’d stayed over, and they’d talked and for a little while, Alec had been able to feel _only the good effects_ of what was happening in his life. Just for half an hour.

 

But he’d slept in the guest room.

 

Lydia and the rest of them had worked out a plan where Alec had to pretend like he was a handful of steps past where the process he had imagined for himself ever would have gotten. He had to be… basically, he was going to have to act like a gay Mundane. Like he knew exactly what he was doing and knew exactly what he wanted and had everything figured out.

 

But he hadn’t been able to take _any_ of his steps. He’d come out, loudly, to half the Clave and his entire family, but he and Magnus hadn’t even gone out on a date yet. Whatever he felt for Jace was shifting and strange now, but it definitely wasn’t gone. There hadn’t been time to think about how it was changing, and Alec didn’t feel like comparing his feelings for Jace to what he felt for Magnus was actually going to be helpful. He barely knew Magnus. And as much as he’d wanted to not lose the _possibility_ of Magnus when the warlock had crashed his wedding, while Alec walked down the aisle toward him, he’d been thinking about himself.

 

He’d been thinking about living a lie for the rest of his life and about what would happen to Lydia if he couldn’t fake being normal well enough and how much he was being asked to give up for mistakes that weren’t his. Yes, he’d been telling himself, for all those reasons, you made the choice you had to make for yourself.

 

But it just wasn’t that easy.

 

His hands shook as he pulled the strap of the overnight bag over his head. The choice he’d made wasn’t a final choice. He hadn’t walked down the aisle, cursed the Clave and married Magnus instead. He’d thrown away a traditional life path— marriage, kids, Institute, promotion into the Clave and probably a good death in battle— for a wide, blank space where he had to forge a path because no one else had ever walked there.

 

He had to start _right now_. And he didn’t know how.

 

* * *

 

 

Maryse slid her hand into her pocket as Robert walked silently past her, into their en suite bathroom. She ran her fingers along the smooth roll of parchment that had been cradled there all day.

 

The fire message from the Clave.

 

It had been addressed to Robert, but if he had any expectation of privacy now, after everything he’d done, then he’d been in a different marriage for the last decade.

 

For a few moments, she just stood in the center of the bedroom, debating with herself about whether or not she was really going to do what she had been thinking about doing since Clarence Pangborn and his daughter had been settled in their quarters. Finally, with a huff of breath, she pulled the string off the message, unrolled it, and straightened it as best she could. She set it at the edge of the bed and sat down next to it, waiting for Robert to come back out of the bathroom.

 

She folded her hands in her lap and tried to remember any of the sentences she’d started to form over lunch, but none of them returned to her before the door opened again.

 

Robert walked out and squinted at her, clearly confused and surprised to find her not actively ignoring him while they were both in their bedroom— until his eyes finally fell on the sheet of paper next to her and his face hardened. He stepped forward and lightly took the message from the bed, his brow growing more furrowed with every line he read.

 

“When did this arrive?” He demanded.

 

“This morning. Just before lunch.”

 

“Damnit.” He huffed. “When were you going to tell me?”

 

“Now,” she answered. She wasn’t trying to sound cold, but it was either cold or outraged. She didn’t trust her voice to land anywhere in between.

 

“And you’re reading my fire messages again.”

 

“No,” Maryse gritted out. “You don’t get to throw that at me. You lost that argument years ago.”

 

For a moment, he looked like he might argue, but then deflated. “Maryse, you’ve never known how to give up.”

 

The calm in Maryse’s body turned from cold to steam with sudden, instantaneous evaporation. “And you have always been ready to run away,” she snapped back. “Your children need you, I need you, the Lightwood legacy needs you, and you’re abandoning all of that for a _clerical job_ in Idris?”

 

“I applied before all of this happened.” Folding the note and tucking it into his breast pocket. “Months ago. Before Jocelyn’s daughter came here.”

 

“Coward.”

 

“You don’t want me here.”

 

“No. Of course I don’t want you here!” Maryse cried. “But your family needs you here. And Annamarie Highsmith doesn’t want you there either.”

 

Robert growled. “How long are you going to make me pay for Annamarie Highsmith?”

 

“As long as I have to pay for her!”

 

They hadn’t shouted at each other like this since Maryse had first discovered Robert’s affair. Just after Maryse had realized she was pregnant with Isabelle. A handful of subsequent fights had eventually petered out into the cold, functional distance they had been getting by with since before Max was born.

 

“And how long do I have to pay for Valentine?” Robert spat back.

 

Maryse felt the raging heat of her anger focus down to a point like the tip of a blade. “Don’t you ever dare blame me for the Circle again. I got us out of the Circle. I got us out of Circle Runes. I got us into this Institute and I have been holding all of us together _for years_. If it weren’t for me, you’d be a stupid worthless lump sitting in a jail cell instead of a stupid worthless lump standing there in a suit telling me he can’t be bothered to stick around long enough to make sure his children’s futures are secured.”

 

“Secured in what?” Robert demanded. “The New York Institute? Suitable marriages?” His fat face grew mocking. “Elite positions? The sliver of hope we ever had for that is gone now, Maryse— can’t you see that? Between Isabelle’s trial for treason, and the shit-show that Alec’s wedding turned into? Alec and Isabelle are beyond saving. You don’t bail out a ship when it’s already sunk.”

 

“So you’re running away.”

 

“Tactical retreat. It’s what you do after too many screw ups.”

 

Maryse was shocked. He’d made comments and threats about leaving before but never taken them this far. He sounded like he really meant it this time. Like he may actually do it.

 

“What about Max?” Maryse managed.

 

Robert walked to the bedroom door and yanked it open. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll screw him up too.”

 

Maryse’s mouth was still hanging open as the door slammed shut behind him.

 

* * *

 

Jace woke up, flicked on his bedside lamp and stared up at the bare steel ceiling.

 

He’d been dreaming. A warm dream full of red hair and the smell of chalk, but there had been more to it than that. Other things… dreamlike, but in a very different way, kept drifting into his mind. A whiff of chalk would be answered with a trace of cologne. Red hair with a gleam of jet black. The taste of alcohol. Warm hands underneath cool rings.

 

The rune at his hip twinged as he stretched.

 

Of course.

 

Alec.

 

Alec and Magnus.

 

Jace laid his palm over his parabatai rune and closed his eyes. He felt his body grow a little warmer, and there was just the slightest, _slightest_ smell of rich, earthy cologne.

 

For Alec’s sake, and for his own, Jace hoped it wasn’t his imagination. He needed his tie to Alec right now. He needed to feel the rune at his hip and believe that whatever was coming through it was real. It was keeping him going. The thought of his family. The thought of going back to them and still being a person that deserved to have them when he returned.

 

He drew back the covers and the cold air rushed against his skin. He went to the little wardrobe in one corner of his room, and pulled out the running clothes folded neatly in the top drawer. His father had had plenty of clothes ready for him when he’d come back to the ship. Workout clothes and gear, mostly, but a couple pairs of jeans and a few plain tee shirts and sweaters. Jace wondered when he’d gotten them. How long before he’d grabbed Jace in Camille Belcourt’s apartments.

 

He pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to think about all those things yet this morning. He wanted to reach into the parabatai link, and believe that Alec was at Magnus’s, just waking up. Maybe, in the trance that he could work himself into while he ran, Jace would be able to sink into the feeling of a happy breakfast by proxy.

 

But first he would get dressed. Then he would stretch. Then he’d do laps on the deck, and then report to the training room.

 

He was training the new… conversions today.

 

And he really didn’t want to think about that.

 


	5. Intelligence Gathering

 

 

You developed a sort of short hand with the people in your life who truly knew you, Jocelyn thought. The people you truly and completely trust. She stared into Luke’s bathroom mirror, combing her hands through her wet hair as the scent of pancakes drifted into the bathroom.

Not a code exactly but… the ability to infer emotions and abbreviate reactions. The ability to skip over a fight, or have it without words, or move it to a better time all without resentment or accusation.

 

Some times over and over and over again.

 

Jocelyn had gone home with Luke last night, not yet ready to acknowledge that she was furious with him, and now Luke was making pancakes (a gesture of apology) before a fight had even taken place. Jocelyn knew it was an invitation to actually have the discussions they needed to have. They’d fought over breakfast more than once. Or she could simply take it as an apology and let the arguments hang back again until another time.

 

She pulled a fluffy amber towel off the rack that hung over the door, squeezed the dripping water from the ends of her hair, and went into the kitchen.

 

Luke stood at the stove, wearing dark wash jeans and a charcoal sweater that Clary had gotten for him for his birthday a few years ago. He slotted his spatula under a pancake and neatly flipped it onto a hand-high stack on a plate next to the stove before he glanced over at her, raised his eyebrows, and pointed the spatula at the stack of perfectly brown, perfectly fluffy pancakes.

 

Luke’s pancakes hadn’t always been perfect, but they were now.

 

Jocelyn nodded. “Thank you.”

 

Luke moved three pancakes from the stack to a bare plate, grabbed the syrup out of a cupboard above the stove, and set the plate and syrup on the kitchen island. Jocelyn slipped behind him to grab a tumbler out of another cupboard, and filled the tumbler from the carton of grapefruit juice sitting out on the counter. She sat down, poured thin strings of syrup over her stack of pancakes and took two perfect, fluffy bites.

 

Luke turned to face her. “Should I make sausages?”

 

“My daughter is living in the New York Institute, Luke.”

 

“Maybe bacon?”

 

“Luke.”

 

Luke gave her the exact expression she’d expected to see. Steady, but guilty. Guilty, but aggrieved. He transferred a few pancakes from the stack to a plate for himself and sat across from her.

 

“You know that only a very good reason would have kept me from having her here.”

 

“I do,” Jocelyn replied. “So what is it?”

 

Luke filled her in on what the situation with the werewolves had been. The ongoing issues with the shadow world in New York and the clear danger that Clary would have been in if he’d taken her in right away.

 

Jocelyn nodded a few times as he talked, then went back to eating her pancakes until he was done.

 

“You know I’d do whatever it took to protect her.” He set his hand over hers. His grip was warm and familiar and Jocelyn realized with a jolt that she’d dreamt of the feeling of his hand on hers while she’d been enchanted. “You know I’d only do what I thought was right.”

 

His words fell heavily, but it only took Jocelyn a moment to realize what he wasn’t saying. “You thought she was better off there. In the Institute?”

 

Luke looked down at their hands. “Valentine can’t get her there. She’s around people who know what she is and can answer questions for her. She’s been through a lot with Isabelle and Jace by her side for the last few weeks. She’s the one who made the call to let Simon Rise. You really want her to be carrying that decision around the New York Wolf pack?”

 

Jocelyn pulled her hand away from Luke’s and rested her head in her hands, staring down at her perfect pancakes.

 

“You… you were out of commission, Jocelyn. And I didn’t know what had happened to you. No one knew how to get you back.” Luke’s voice grew atonal, the way it did when he was forcing himself not to get emotional. “She was already… She was already Marked by the time I got back to her. She had a seraph blade. She was learning to use it. She punched _Camille Belcourt in the face_. Jocelyn…. She was always a Shadowhunter. And… I felt like I had to let her be one. You know that I would have just gotten in her way. You know that.”

 

“I never wanted it to go like this,” Jocelyn sighed. “I thought I would have more time.”

 

Luke just shrugged. He didn’t have to repeat any of his opinions about how Jocelyn should have raised Clary. She’d heard them all. They’d discussed it a thousand times. Jocelyn had given up so many things to keep Clary safe, and away from the Shadow world. And Luke had told her so many times that she couldn’t keep it up forever.

 

And she’d always known that one day he’d be proven right.

 

She’d gone through the last 18 years with such a clear goal. Such a clear path to stay on. Now all of it was gone. Clary was a Shadowhunter. Simon was a vampire. Another war was starting.

 

And all Jocelyn could think about was the first time Luke had made her pancakes. In that shit hole hotel room with a bullet hole in the window. She’d been sitting at the edge of the double bed they’d shared the night before, trying to keep to their own sides even though the busted mattress springs kept making them sink into the middle together. She’d been rubbing her swollen ankles, wondering how long she was going to be able to keep her pants held together with a hair tie before her belly got too big for such a frugal solution.

 

Luke had brought her a plate of pancakes, each one burned around the edges, with two strips of slightly undercooked bacon on top, and he’d offered to marry her.

 

She’d said no. There had been so many good reasons to say no. Saying no had been the logical thing to do, so long ago.

 

Jocelyn cut through the perfect pancakes in front of her now, and repeated. “I thought I’d have more time.”

* * *

 

 

Clary smelled good.

 

She smelled so good. And, even when she was gone, her whole room smelled like her.

 

It was starting to freak Simon out.

 

Hunger as a vampire felt different than hunger as a human had. Instead of feeling an ache in his gut or a lightness in his head, he felt a strange sort of tightness in his veins. It was almost like starting to get a leg cramp, but the feeling suffused his whole body, and was capped by a gentle sting along his top gums.

 

Where his fangs came out.

 

He’d been sleeping in Clary’s room at the Institute ever since springing Camille from the Hotel Dumort. Sort of secretly. They hadn’t lied about the fact that he’d been there. No one had directly asked either of them where Simon was living now that he couldn’t go back to the vampires. Probably because no one thought a vampire was stupid enough to live in a fortress full of Shadowhunters, and no one thought a Shadowhunter was stupid to hide a vampire in her room.

 

It wasn’t stupidity so much as timing. Things had been crazy since the wedding and no one had asked where Simon was. Simon wasn’t supposed to have spent two days in Clary’s room, breathing in the scent of her until it made him drool and ache.

 

He glanced at Clary’s bedside clock. A little after eight. A whole day of sunlight left, and he needed blood, and had no idea how to get it, or who to ask for help.

 

It was going to be a very long day.

 

* * *

 

 

From the moment Lydia lifted her still-swollen head off the pillow, she knew it was going to be a long day. That feeling was confirmed over and over again as she went about her morning. First she couldn’t find an ice pack for her head, then the kitchen had been out of coffee by the time she got there. Plus two women had already been in there when she arrived, and she could tell from the way they fell silent when she entered, and from the half mocking smirk on the short one’s face that they had been talking about her.

 

And then— just as Lydia had walked back into the Institute with a large cappuccino and gotten a notification on her phone that the Clave had accepted and was processing her request for a tutor to replace Hodge Starkweather— Alec-fucking-Lightwood walked into the Institute behind her with a mark on his neck that made it look like he’d been fucking a fledgling vampire.

 

Her first instinct was to let him rot. Let him walk into his first meeting with a Clave Investigator with that kind of provocative mark clearly visible. He was an adult. He could make his own decisions. Him being a decision-making-adult was at the core of about half their problems right now.

 

Alec looked at her, wide eyed. A deer caught in headlights. Then his mouth fell open, he dropped his gaze to the floor, and Lydia saw his adams apple bob.

 

Lydia realized what she was doing. She was reacting with the exact instincts they were all trying to overcome in the people around them. Alec had walked in from doing something she had been taught he should be ashamed of, and the first thing she’d done was make him feel ashamed. She respected this man enough that she’d nearly become his wife, and now, confronted with the _one_ thing about him that made him not fit perfectly into the Shadowhunter mold, she hadn’t even been his friend for a moment.

 

She took a gulp from her cappuccino, sighed, and laughed gently. “Come on, Alec. We’ll swing by my room on the way to Isabelle’s.”

 

Alec looked back up. “What? Why?”

 

“Because I don’t know how to cover that massive fucking hickey, Isabelle probably does, and my concealer is closer to your skin tone than hers. Turn up your collar and come with me.”

 

**

 

Maryse checked her eyeliner, and once she was convinced it was perfect, without even the slightest trace of smudging, she turned, and walked straight from the bathroom door to the bedroom door, not even looking out the corner of her eye at Robert, or the boxes he was moving his things into.

 

She’d told him to be subtle about it. Hopefully the oaf wouldn’t draw too much attention to himself while moving into one of the spare bedrooms. Maybe his boxes, which she was sure he would leave laying in a hallway some where in plain sight, could even be mistaken for Pangborn's.

 

She almost didn’t care. She wanted him out of her quarters more than she wanted to pretend things were still okay, and he’d be leaving for Idris in a few weeks anyway. There was so little time to lie left. He had agreed to stay until Max’s rune ceremony. That was something at least.

 

Maryse would need to tell her children before Robert could. He was sure to screw that up and she didn’t want to hurt them with this news. How did you start a conversation like that though? _I need your paperwork, don’t go back to that warlock’s apartment, you’re father is abandoning us?_

 

“Mrs. Lightwood!”

 

Maryse spun on her heel to find Clarence Pangborn a few feet behind her. He was… an oddity, but Maryse was more and more sure that his easy approach to this investigation and his casual demeanor were meant to throw them all off. It was working more than she cared to admit; the man infuriated her. He dressed as if this was his home, and had spent the day yesterday easing in as though he had all the time in the world to make that the case.

 

He also looked so much like a Pangborn. Maryse wasn’t sure how he was related to Donovan Pangborn, from the Circle, but they had such similar faces that every interaction with him further unnerved her.

 

She was in no position to be unnerved.

 

“Investigator Pangborn,” she replied, folding her hands in front of her hips. “How can I assist you?””

 

He grinned at her. “No need to be so formal, Clarence is fine, Mr. Pangborn if you insist. I was hoping I could have a moment of your time?”

 

“Aren’t I already on your schedule for midmorning?” she asked. She’d put this information together carefully. He was going to talk to Clary first, then Alec, then her, then Isabelle and then Lydia.

 

“This isn’t about the investigation.”

 

For a moment, Maryse considered finding a way to politely refuse, or to get out of it, but Clarence added something that made her blood go cold.

 

“Please, this is a quick matter about our children.”

 

Maryse breathed in carefully through her nose, making every part of her body still as she did so. “Our children?”

 

Clarence smiled and moved closer. “Lydia shared with me that she is seeking a new tutor for this Institute. My daughter needs training, and your youngest son, Maxwell, is due to come back to this Institute soon, I believe? And there is the matter of the Fairchild girl. This Institute needs a tutor and the Clave… has other focuses at the moment.”

 

“Your question?” Maryse prompted.

 

“Could you suggest members of this Institute who might be willing to take on some part time training? I planned to train Adeline myself when I’m able, Max and Clary are of course welcome at those lessons, but my schedule will not allow me to function as a full time tutor. It makes the most sense for us to find a way to spread the work around. I understand your daughter is an accomplished forensic pathologist and your son specializes in the bow? Miss Branwell has many other duties, but her rune work is supposed to be second to none. I’d like to know the young shadowhunters in my care are getting the best training available without delay.”

 

“You want… my children to train Adeline?” Maryse asked, before realizing that she should have pointed out that she was Head of this Institute and all the children here were under her care. 

 

Clarence’s open face tightened ever so slightly. “As part of a larger team and possibly with some… additional supervision.”

 

“What is your specialty?” 

 

“Hand to hand combat,” Pangborn replied. 

 

The potential truth underlying Clarence’s intentions was clear. Allowing him to train Max and Clarissa gave him easy access to two of the most vulnerable people in the Institute. The two with the least understanding of the political risks they all needed to be aware of. But she couldn’t agree to shut down their training either.

 

It would just be one more awkward conversation she had to have with her children soon.

 

“I’ll put together a list for us to discuss. At our midmorning meeting.”

 

Clarence gave her a wary smile. “Much obliged, Mrs. Lightwood.”

 

**

 

Isabelle had gotten very little information out of Alec about his date as she had carefully hidden his hickey, covering and blending pigment and powder until the mark was almost completely gone.

 

It was so frustrating. She’d been trying, gently, to get Alec to talk to her about things like this for years. She’d known he was gay for years and they had developed this strange little way of talking around it. They’d made pauses and glances and inferences do the work of actual conversation.

 

She’d learned he was in love with Jace through a desperate head shake and tightly pursed lips at the wrong moment.

 

More than anyone else, she understood that Alec couldn’t say certain things. She _got_ that his mind was full of fences and blown up bridges and high brick walls that couldn’t all be torn down or fixed just because of what had happened at the wedding. If he had walked into her room, plopped down at her vanity and started gushing about his date, and Magnus, and drawing her a verbal diagram of how he’d gotten a hickey that just screamed “I am an awkward virgin,” she would have assumed he’d hit his head or drunk some sort of insanity potion.

 

But she’d wanted to hear _something_ about the date. Maybe it was selfish, but she had been looking forward to a moment with Alec to talk about all of this. Who else did Alec know that had dated downworlders other than Isabelle? Who had dated immortals? Who had caught shit from the rest of the Institute for who she was sleeping with? Isabelle was hurt that Alec didn’t seem willing to admit more to her than that Magnus had taken him to a fancy lounge sort of place for an “aperitif” and to an upscale Ethiopian place for dinner. It had taken additional nudging to get Alec to explain that an aperitif just meant getting a pre-dinner drink. It had been a fashionable custom in the Victorian Era, which it turned out was the last time Magnus had been out on a real date.

 

Isabelle had given up after that. Alec had held himself so tightly as he explained what an aperitif was, and every time Isabelle asked him a question, his gaze slid across the mirror to Lydia. It had happened over and over again and Lydia’s expression had never moved out of a frozen, cultivated polite interest that only made Isabelle feel like she knew even less about Alec than she’d thought she did.

 

Had Alec and Lydia started anything other than an engagement? Had they ever gone out on a date? Had Alec ever kissed her? Had Lydia been dreaming about a handsome husband and the beautiful kids they would have had? Isabelle had no idea. She’d helped plan Alec and Lydia’s wedding and she had no clue. But there had to be something between them that explained why it was so hard for Alec to talk about Magnus in front of her.

 

“Done,” Isabelle told him, tossing her beauty blender toward the mirror.

 

Alec looked up at her incredulously, and she waved her hand toward the mirror, inviting him to look for himself.

 

He sat up and leaned all the way across the vanity counter, twisting his neck to view it from all different angles.

 

“Wow,” he finally said. “It’s totally gone.”

 

Isabelle shrugged. “I’m an artist. I’ll have to teach you how to do it later.”

 

“Or you could just, you know, not let Magnus suck on your neck until it bruises,” Lydia suggested from the perch. He tone was weird, more uncomfortable than harsh.

 

Alec looked like he was going to reply for just a split second before he clamped his mouth shut and blushed. Lydia rolled her eyes and checked her watch. “You’re due in Pangborn’s office in five minutes. Be early. Make a good impression.”

 

He nodded and headed for the door, pausing for the briefest moment to squeeze Isabelle’s forearm in thanks before he followed Lydia out into the hallway.

 

Isabelle watched them go, then returned to her vanity and started to set out her own makeup things. She wasn’t meeting with Pangborn until late afternoon, with would give her plenty of time to run some drills with Clary and think of a way to get Alec to talk to her. She’d just noticed Alec’s overnight bag still on her bed when there was another knock at her door.

 

“Alec?” She called as she walked to the door, which was already opening.

 

Her mother stepped into her room, and Isabelle fought to keep the startled expression off her face. It had been months, maybe more than a year since her mother had come to her room.

 

“Mom?”

 

She could tell something was wrong. Her mother was like Jace that way— she thought she was a brick wall, but she had no pokerface at all. Whenever she was upset or angry, the emotion radiated off of her. You could feel her crying from the other side of a door.

 

“Were you expecting Alec?” Her mother asked. Her voice was too breathless. Shoulders too tight.

 

Isabelle shook her head. “I thought maybe he realized he forgot that,” she pointed to the bag. Her mother looked over at it and Isabelle watched her mouth thin.

 

“A weekend bag,” She said with a huff. “And an expensive one. Of course.”

 

“He seemed happy,” Isabelle said. Her mother turned a hard glare on her, and Isabelle stared back, unflinching. “What did you need?”

 

Her mother glared back at the weekend bag for another moment before shaking her head. “Max.” She smoothed her dress down unnecessarily. “He’s being portalled back from Idris around eleven this morning. I’m going to be in my meeting with the Investigator. Help your brother settle in.” She dug her hand into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out a few twenty dollar bills. “Maybe… take him out somewhere. Make sure he has everything he needs?”

 

Isabelle took the money. “Get him out of the Institute?”

 

Her mother looked down at the floor. “Explain to him that things are… complicated right now. That we all need him to be careful around our guests and that… the world is getting dangerous again.”

 

“Aren’t those things that he should hear from you? From his mother?”

 

“He’ll listen to you, Isabelle. It’s very important that he listens.”

 

“And Alec? What am I supposed to tell him about Alec?”

 

Her mother shook her head. “We’ll let that wait. I don’t think he needs to know about that.”

 

“Max knows Alec was supposed to get married. He’s going to notice that didn’t happen.”

 

“Isa—“

 

“And if he doesn’t hear about it from me, or Alec, he’s going to hear about it from someone else at the Institute. Is that what you want?”

 

“Maybe your father and I should tackle that subject with Max later on.”

 

“I’m not going to lie to Max if he asks,” Isabelle declared. “You skipped Lydia’s meeting. We’re already working on the plan she set out. No one is going to lie about Alec. No one is going to act like he did anything wrong.”

 

She could see the muscles in her mother’s jaw working. “What is Alec going to tell Pangborn?”

 

Isabelle shrugged. “The truth. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we’re all just going to tell the truth. Pangborn is only asking about Hodge right now.”

 

“Isabelle, don’t be a fool, Pangborn is here to dig up anything he can on any of us. We can’t be parading Alec’s dirt around, or yours!”

 

But her mother’s shout wasn’t angry. It was quiet, but not seething. So many of their conversations had ended with one or both of them with tears in their eyes, but Isabelle could see, for the first time in a long time, tears on her mother’s cheeks. She sounded tired.

 

“Or…your father’s.”

 

Isabelle’s entire body went cold, like she’d jumped into ice water.

 

She knew her father had had an affair years ago. She knew that he’d almost left her mother for the other woman. She didn’t know the woman’s name, what Institute she was in. If she was even still alive. But her mother had told her enough. Too much for a fourteen year old girl to know, certainly.

 

“I never told Alec or Jace about that,” Isabelle replied. “And I’m not going to tell Max. But I’m not going to lie to him about Alec. I’m not going to let him think that his big brother is different now. I’m not going to let Max feel like he can’t look up to Alec.”

 

“Isabelle, what Alec did is going to have reperc—“

 

“I'm not going to let anyone tell Max that there's something wrong with Alec."

 

Her mother looked up at her, and Isabelle saw something in her face shift. For a moment, the hardness she was used to seeing was gone. The steely quality of her mother’s eyes was gone. The tight press of her lips went slack.

 

“Around eleven this morning,” her mother finally said. She pulled another few twenties from her blazer pocket and held them out. “And he probably needs new shoes.”

 

Isabelle took the money, and her mother walked back out the door.

 

 

 


	6. Rendevous

Alec left his meeting with his Pangborn with his stomach gurgling and a light coat of sweat over his forehead, and, he was sure, at his neck, eating away at the makeup Isabelle had so carefully placed there. Pangborn had been professional, and much kinder than any other Clave representative Alec had met (barring Lydia), but his questioning had been thorough, and Alec felt really _off-kilter_ right now. 

 

He’d felt a little off-kilter since meeting Magnus, if he was being honest with himself. And he really truly was trying to be honest with himself. It was the only way he was going to pull off being honest with everyone else. It wasn’t just that he’d gotten used to lying and was still just starting to get used to the idea that he didn’t have to keep lying. It was that he’d blown apart his own personal rulebook, the one he’d started putting together the first time Jace had pinned him during combat training. 

 

Jace had landed on top of him, and he’d felt… _pink_. There were a bunch of different words he might use for it now, but the first word had been “pink.” It was a sort of cloudy, warm, happy feeling. It came mostly from Jace, and just a little bit sometimes from Hodge, and for about a week it had been a strange, but nice and simple thing. He let himself get pinned, and he felt good in a weird way. Then Jace had teased him for suddenly always being off his game in training and Hodge had given him a gentle, but serious talk about how important it was not to let himself get distracted, and Alec had started to realize that there was something wrong with the pink feeling. He’d needed to figure out how and when to hide it. Constant and unilateral denial had worked less and less as he got older and started to understand what that feeling really was. Eventually he’d had to stop lying to himself, and once he’d stopped doing that, it had gotten harder to lie to everyone else. So he’d developed an unwritten, but very thorough rubric for things it was acceptable to admit to Isabelle. 

 

Maybe, if all the defenses and checks and balances and rules he had made for himself had just been about never letting anyone learn he was attracted to men, he’d be doing better right now, but the need to always be in control of himself had spiraled out from that central point so long ago. Everything had become about protecting his family. Staying in the closet had always been part of that, and now that he was out, Alec was realizing how many other pieces of himself felt like they hinged on feeling like he needed to hide. 

 

He wasn’t sure who he was anymore, without those rules still in place. 

 

He dropped into the bathroom on the way toward the kitchen and pulled down his collar to check Isabelle’s work. A little bit of pale powder had transferred to the fabric. It took him a few moments to find any evidence of the hickey, and he had to rely on being able to feel where it was. It was still hidden. Perfect. 

 

 It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t know who he was, he told himself. He was the same person, just like he’d barked at his mother. He wasn’t fundamentally different now that everything was out in the open…but he wasn’t sure exactly _how_ to be who he really was anymore. 

 

He knew it was easier when he was around Magnus. And he wished he’d had more time to adjust to that reality before sitting down to be interrogated by the Clave. 

 

He gave up on staring at his neck in the mirror, but couldn’t quite push away the memory of how the mark had gotten there it as he adjusted his collar and walked back out into the hallway. Just thinking about Magnus game him a jolt of happiness. Excitement.  A feeling more like the light innocence of that pink feeling a decade ago than anything he’d ever felt in the interim. 

 

And his mother suddenly appearing at the end of the hall stole it away. 

 

She looked surprised, but recovered quickly. Suspiciously quickly. 

 

“Alec,” she said, her voice more blank and dull than Alec had heard it since she had first gotten home from Idris and into the whole Clary Fairchild mess. 

 

“Mom.”

 

“Your meeting with Pangborn. How did it go?”

 

Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly, but it was less demanding than he would have expected. 

 

“Fine.” He tried to stop himself from tugging at his collar, but failed. His mother’s eyes followed the movement of his hand.

 

He wanted her to ask him about his date, he realized with a weird twist in his chest. He didn’t want to _answer._ Wasn’t going to give her any of the details he might try to give Izzy later, if they got a second alone. 

 

But he wanted her to _ask_. 

 

Her eyes narrowed. “Fine? You look flush.”

 

“Nerves.”

 

Something in her face flickered, but it passed quickly. “What did he ask you about?

 

“Hodge. Mostly. I think Pangborn is trying to figure out allegiances. Relationships.”

 

“Relationships?” 

 

Alec wriggled his shoulders as he replied, “Yeah. Relationships. Like… was he a tutor or more like a servant. Did he have friends. Did I know about any…” Alec stopped. Pangborn had asked him if he thought Hodge had any romantic connections at the Institute and for some reason the idea of repeating that question to his mother was making him sweat again. 

 

“Did he seem isolated or bitter, basically.”

 

His mother nodded. “What else?”

 

“He asked about how I work with other people in the Institute. Clary. Jace. Isabelle. Lydia.”

 

“Lydia?”

 

Alec was definitely sweating now. 

 

He’d been honest. He didn’t really know what else to do right now. He hadn’t gone overboard. He hadn’t been stupidly open, but now that he didn’t have to lie about how he felt, or about Magnus, he was having trouble figuring out where the normal limits of  political honesty actually were.

 

“He seems to want to get a grip on how the Institute ticks. He wanted to know if Clary was settling in. How the trial has affected Isabelle’s roll in the Institute. If Lydia… if I think Lydia and I are on good terms after… what happened at the wedding.”

 

His mother’s face went tight and she looked away from him, focusing at some random point down the hallway. 

 

“Did he ask you about Magnus Bane?”

 

Alec bit his lip. 

 

What was he supposed to say? He’d tried to be careful with his mother after the wedding, but she’d snapped at him and he’d snapped back and he knew what she thought of Magnus and he knew that he was _loudly_ not being anything she wanted him to be right now…

 

But he’d sat across from Magnus in a dimly lit booth last night and sipped fancy cocktails and smiled. 

 

He’d tried to figure out if he liked the taste of injera and Magnus had convinced him he’d like Sambusa and they’d laughed. 

 

Magnus had sat with him on the couch and talked to him and their hands had crept together and he’d asked Magnus if he could maybe use magic to help find Jace, and Magnus had tried to track with the sweater Alec had brought along. 

 

It hadn’t worked, but they could keep trying. They could think of something. Maybe they could find some article that had a better magical link to Jace, or even to Valentine. 

 

 And Magnus had kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until he wasn’t worried anymore

 

Alec just didn’t want to lie anymore. 

 

“I told Pangborn we’re dating.”

 

Alec braced himself, waiting for his mother to explode or sneer or cry like she had a couple days ago. She didn’t do any of those things though. She just froze up unnaturally again. It was almost like she was putting herself on pause while she tried not to react badly.

 

“I like him, and we’re figuring out what that means.”

 

“Alec…” His mother sighed. 

 

“I’m happy,” Alec grit out. 

 

“For how long?”

 

A sudden wave of rage welled up in Alec, but some instinct stepped in and pushed it back down. “Longer than I use to hope for.” He turned around and walked away, definitely sweating now.

 

“Alec,” His mother called after him. 

 

He turned back to her, waiting for whatever she wanted to add. 

 

“If it doesn’t last, what are you going to be left with?”

 

Alec gaped at her. Did she really think he hadn’t thought of that? That he hadn’t been asking himself that every single day since they’d all gone to Pandemonium with that fucking necklace?

 

Even when he’d stepped off the altar, he knew that he was walking _away_ from Lydia, and living a lie, and being forced to make up for errors that he hadn’t committed and could never fix, more than he was walking _toward_ Magnus. If he and Magnus got a dinner a couple more times and this warm, heart-beaty, lightheaded feeling went away, Alec was pretty sure that all he’d have was the ability to feel “pink” again, and he knew his mother wouldn’t understand that, or why it was important enough to risk so much for.

 

So he just kept walking away. 

 

* * *

 

When Clary got back to her room and saw Simon, she went through a sequence of emotions she was feeling a lot lately, in record time. 

 

Relief. Worry. Guilt. 

 

Simon was still in her room, nothing had happened to him. He looked terrible, sitting on her bed and looking even deader than he had when Raphael had carried him back to the Institute. She’d run to a bookstore after her meeting to pick up some comic book trades, a cell phone charger, and a couple other things to help him stay occupied, and clearly she should have come right back to her room to check on him. 

 

Relief. Worry. Guilt.

 

“Simon?” She asked, lurching toward him. 

 

He threw his hands up, warding her off. “Don’t… don’t get too…”

 

“What’s wrong? Simon?”

 

“I need to eat,” Simon said. “I…Clary I feel… weird. I think I need…blood.”

 

“Right. Okay, okay. We’ll have to find some,” Clary replied. She pulled her phone from her pocket and stared down at her thumb against the screen. What did she think she was going to do? Order some and have it delivered? Who was she going to call? They’d managed to piss off every vampire in the downworld no matter which leader they were allied with, Raphael or Camille.

 

Leader….downworld.

 

There was someone she could call.

 

Luke picked up on the first ring, and the feeling of love and gratitude for him that exploded in Clary’s chest was overwhelming.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Luke? Luke, Simon really needs blood. We don’t know where to get it. ”

 

“Where are you? How long has it been since he’s fed?”

 

“My room at Institute.”

 

“A couple days?” Simon offered from the bed. 

 

Right. Vampire hearing, Clary realized. 

 

“Maybe three,” Simon finished shakily. 

 

Clary relayed the information. 

 

“Clary, get out of that room,” Luke, in his absolutely-not-to-be-messed-with voice. A voice that went straight to Clary’s feet. She walked out into the hallway and shut the door behind her. After a moment she heard it lock from the inside. 

 

“I can get some. It’s going to take me at least forty five minutes, maybe an hour. I’m putting on my coat now. Clary— listen to me— do not get too close to Simon. He’s too young, he’s too hungry, and you’re barely trained. There is a real chance that he will eat you. Okay?”

 

Clary heard a soft thump against the door a little above her head. Simon, hitting his forehead to the other side. 

 

“Get Isabelle,” Simon said. “If you move me into another room, I can last an hour,” Simon said. “Don’t come in. I can make it.”

 

“Another room?”

 

“A room without… a room that no one stays in. That doesn’t smell like…”

 

Simon trailed off, but Clary realized what he was going to say. 

 

“Okay,” She said to both of them. “Luke, I’ll meet you at the gate.”

 

“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Luke promised and hung up. 

 

Clary wiped the tear running down her cheek off on her sleeve, and dug into her bag for a couple of the comic books she’d gone to pick up. She slid them under the door. 

 

“To keep your mind off things,” she said shakily as she called Isabelle. 

 

“Thanks,” Simon said, pulling them into her locked room.

 

* * *

 

 

The text from Isabelle was the first Alec had heard that Max was coming home today. He was trying not to read into that. Their parents tended to shuttle Max around Institutes without ever really making it a big deal that he’d be home for a while. But even with everything that was happening right now, Alec would have hoped that his parents could have managed a big welcome for Max when he was coming home for his rune ceremony. 

 

Alec ducked into Max’s room and opened a window to let some of the stale air out and the fresh air in, and then went to the front door to wait to be the only person who could be bothered to greet his youngest sibling. 

 

Well. That was unfair. It was clear from Isabelle’s text that something major had come up. Major to the point where Alec hadn’t even asked about it, because if Pangborn asked him about it, he didn’t want to know the answer. 

 

His pocket buzzed as sat down in one of the pews in the entrance hall.

 

_Good Morning_

 

It was from Magnus, and Alec felt the grin starting to tug at his cheeks. It was nearly eleven. Was Magnus still in bed where Alec had left him? In his shiny pajamas with his sleep mussed hair and light, lingering streaks of eyeliner under his eyes? Or had he been up and active for hours, wondering if it was too soon to text?

 

 _Morning._ Alec texted back and the reply bubbles came up immediately.

 

_I hope your meeting went well._

 

_Better than expected. He seems pretty even keeled for a Clave Investigator._

 

Alec’s thumb hovered over his screen. He wanted to say something teasing and flirty about the fact that, due to Magnus, he’d gone through the whole meeting worried about the mark on his neck, but he didn’t want to say the wrong thing, or sound like he was scolding. 

 

And there was just a little tickle of worry that if he scolded Magnus about it Magnus would think he couldn’t… kiss Alec like he had last night. Alec couldn’t walk around with hickies all the time, that was ridiculous… but he’d rather find a way to cover them up than not get the experience of making them. 

 

_Are you in for a very stressful day?_

 

_Not so far. I’m waiting for Max to get home. I might get to take him out into the city for a little while._

 

Alec hit send, debated on whether or not the message was already too long, and then added _There is this truly disgusting hot dog cart that he loves that I might take him to go find._

 

Reply bubbles came up and then disappeared once, then again. But Alec didn’t see what they had said before there was a flash of blue green light outside the door. 

 

He tucked his phone into his pocket and went to the front door, flinging it open. 

 

Max ran for him, Alec crouched down, and he had his arms full of nine-year-old in moments. Max squeezed him tightly, but, uncharacteristically, didn’t let go. Alec felt his brother’s little fists grab handfuls of the back of his sweater. 

 

“Max? Hey, what’s wrong?”

 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Max replied into his shoulder. “My teachers told me that Valentine got Jace!”

 

Alec’s heart felt like it was filling with lead and sinking in his chest. It was amazing how quickly you could forget how hard it was to be nine. He squeezed Max a little tighter. 

 

“He’s going to be fine, Max. Okay? We’re going to find him, and everything is going to be okay.”

 

Max let go and rocked backward, staring seriously at Alec. “Is he going to be back in time for my rune ceremony?”

 

Alec bit his lip, noticing exactly how much more difficult being honest had gotten in the last ten seconds. “I hope so,” he finally answered. 

 

“Maybe we should put it off, until we find him. You put your wedding off so we could find him.”

 

Wow, Alec marveled. He’d had no idea that being honest could be this hard. “Um. Actually, Max that’s not what happened.”

 

“What happened?”

 

Alec lost his nerve. “Complicated, boring grown up stuff. Look, the important thing is that we’re Shadowhunters. Okay? I know things are scary right now, but Shadowhunters keep going, even when things are scary. So we’re going to look for Jace, and you’re going to get your rune ceremony, and maybe some birthday cake, and we’ll freeze a piece for Jace. And he can have it when we get him back. Okay?”

 

Max did not look convinced. “So… are you not getting married anymore?”

 

Alec shook his head. “No, Max. I ‘m not getting married anymore.”

 

“Alec? Max?”

 

Alec felt a weird chill down his spine at his father’s voice.  Like he’d been caught doing something wrong. 

 

“Dad,” Max said, moving past Alec to hug their father, who awkwardly bent to pat him on the back, but kept his eyes on Alec.

 

“It’s good to have you home,” their father said. “I thought you and I could go out for lunch.”

 

“I thought Isabelle was supposed to take me out to buy new shoes?”

 

“I can help you with that. Alec? Can you take his things down to his room?”

 

Alec looked back at his father steadily. Something was up. He could tell. And it was clear Max could tell too. 

 

“Okay,” Max said carefully. “Can Alec come with us?”

 

Alec watched his father’s cheeks go just a little pink. “Alec has some work to do at the Institute right now. But maybe he and Isabelle will be around for dinner tonight?” 

 

Alec forced a smile and walked over to Max’s bags. His legs felt like lead. “Yeah. I’ll text Izzy. We’ll be around for dinner.”

 

With no more than a smile and a wave, his father and his little brother set off down the pathway to the gate. Alec watched them go. His phone buzzed again and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. 

 

_Well. Time with your brother sounds lovely, even if hotdogs don’t._

 

_Will I see you again tonight?_

 

_I know things are busy at the Institute right now. You can let me know if I’m monopolizing your time._

 

 Alec shook his head and typed back _No, you’re not monopolizing anything. I was talking to Max. I’m nostrum about tonight yet though. Can I get back to you later?_

 

_Of course._

 

Alec sighed, tucked his phone into his pocket and started to carry Max’s bags inside. 

 

* * *

 

 

Maryse had once accused him of babysitting their children rather than being a real parent. They’d had one of their fights over it, and ultimately, Robert had thought that it was bullshit.

 

But as he struggled to talk to his youngest son over a burger, he was starting to wonder if maybe Maryse had had a point. 

 

It had started out easily enough. They’d been able to hold a small conversation about what Max wanted his first rune to be, but Max had immediately steered the conversation back to questions that Robert wasn’t sure how to answer. 

 

Why did Jace go with Valentine?

Why did Isabelle have to go on trial?

Why didn’t Alec get married?

 

He loved his children. He’d always loved his children. He’d stayed with Maryse so much longer than he should have because he loved his children. And for all her invective and accusations, he had every intention of staying in contact with them as best he could when he moved back to Idris. 

 

The last few months though… a man couldn’t be attacked on all fronts and not be allowed to retreat. 

 

“Dad?” Max asked again, dunking a handful of french fries into ketchup. “Why didn’t Alec get married? Isn’t because of what happened to Jace?”

 

Robert stole a few french fries to give himself time to think. 

 

“Alec said it was because of complicated, boring, grown up stuff. That’s always a lie. That’s just what grown ups say when they don’t want to answer. Did something bad happen?”

 

Robert ate all the french fries in his hand. Max watched him chew. 

 

“There’s something we should talk about before your rune ceremony,” Robert finally said. “Being a Shadowhunter is hard sometimes. You always have to be…” He sighed and tried again. “What we do for the world is so important. Learning to fight. Using the runes. Keeping the world safe from demons. I do that. Your mother does that. Your brother and sister do that. We have rules and rituals and customs that are all built around helping us do that.”

 

“I know,” Max replied, rolling his eyes and grabbing a few more fries. 

 

“What’s hard to realize when you’re young, is that…you’re part Angel and part human. Angels are emotionless. They put their duty above all else. Humans… aren’t like that. Some times you find yourself pulled between your duty and what you want for yourself.”

 

He looked up to see if Max was listening, but he seemed a lot more focused on his burger than on anything else. But his disinterest was almost enticing. Robert had been trying to say this out loud to someone for so long, it didn’t matter if that someone turned out to be nine years old, or if that someone was listening. He just needed to say it at this point.

 

“Humans fall, Max. Sometimes you can’t do your duty. Sometimes you can’t deny yourself what you want anymore. For Shadowhunters, it’s always about finding your way back to what’s right. And sometimes it takes time.”

 

“So… what does Alec want?” Max asked. 

 

Robert sighed. “Alec wants to run an Institute. He wants to uphold the family name and do good in the world. He… Max, I’m not sure what to tell you. Alec got confused. He’s… he’s going through something right now.”

 

“A grown up thing?” Max asked. 

 

“A grown up thing,” Robert confirmed. “But he’s… he’s your big brother, right? We all love him and trying to stop him or punish him isn’t right. We all just need… We need to be there for him while he gets his head back on straight. The last couple months have been hard for him.”

 

“Is he okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Robert confirmed, with a smile. “I think he’s going to be okay. We all just need to give him some time. He’ll come around. Just… remember what I said about being there for him okay? Family doesn’t give up on you just because you made a mistake.  People make mistakes.”

 

Max looked up from his burger, his blue eyes unnervingly sharp. “Alec never  makes mistakes.”

 

Robert bit his lip. “Well. Everyone makes mistakes eventually. Maybe it was just Alec’s turn.”

 

This idea was met with silence. 

 

“We should follow this up with a milkshake.”

 

Robert could tell that his son knew that was a cheap effort to change the subject, but he didn’t object. 

 

They drank their milkshakes in silence, already out of things to discuss. 

 


	7. First Debriefing

 

“How about this one?”  Clary asked, flipping her sketchbook up again. Adeline laughed, and after a couple moments, Max let himself laugh too. 

 

Clary was good at drawing, and even though the three of them were supposed to be studying in the library for a little while longer, Clary had stopped and done a really good drawing of Max. For the last 20 minutes she’d been drawing different runes on it so he could see what he’d look like with his first rune. 

 

She’d done the angelic power rune, a deflect rune like Alec’s and a voyance rune like Jace’s. The drawing she was showing them now was of a big, round smiley face on Max’s cheek. 

 

Max huffed at both girls. “That’s ridiculous.”

 

Clary chuckled. She set her sketchbook back down on the table, grabbed her eraser and rubbed at the drawing.  “I know. That’s the point. You’re the most serious ten year old in the world.”

 

Max wasn’t sure how to react to that, so he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “How did you get so good at drawing?”

 

Clary shrugged. “Mostly a lot of practice. You kind of learn how to think about the shapes of things, not just what you’re supposed to think they look like. I think that’s why I picked up on runes so quickly. I have a lot of practice remembering shapes.” 

 

Max nodded. He wished he was better at remembering shapes. He was way behind on learning his runes. Clary had only seen runes for the first time a few weeks ago and already she was so much better at using them than he was. 

 

“So tell me about the first rune ceremony,” Clary said. “I didn’t get one. I’m curious.”

 

Adeline smiled. “It’s a really big deal. The whole Institute comes to see, and you stand up on a dias with your family and a Silent Brother gives you your rune and your parents present you with a stele and there’s cake and ice-cream. My dad gave me a rose quartz stele, but it’s so fancy that I mostly leave it in my room.”

 

“Cool,” Clary said. She set her sketch book down and looked at it for a few moments before biting her lip. “Does your first rune… mean anything?”

 

“All runes mean something,” Max replied with a shrug. “That’s the point.”

 

“No, like… okay you know how when parabatai give each other runes it’s a little more powerful? Does your first rune have anything like that?”

 

Max looked at Adeline. They both shrugged. 

 

Clary was weird to talk to sometimes. She was Valentine’s daughter, but she wasn’t like Valentine at all. She was nice, and sad. She had a seraph blade she barely knew how to use and way too few marks for someone as old as she was. Isabelle really liked her, and Alec pretended not to for some reason. 

 

And she had a best friend who was a vampire, and her mom had taken her to the High Warlock of Brooklyn all the time when she was little. And she knew the head of the New York werewolf pack. She was the weirdest person Max had ever met. 

 

“Um,” Adeline eventually offered. “There’s like… sayings about your first runes. And like… runes you’re supposed to get first.”

 

“What kind of sayings?” Clary asked. 

 

“Like… you shouldn’t get a battle rune for your first rune, it makes you irrational,” Adeline said. 

 

“Most people get the voyance rune, or the angelic power rune,” Max said. “The voyance rune is more traditional.”

 

“I think my first rune was an iratze,” Clary said thoughtfully. “Is there a saying about that?”

 

“It’s kind of a bad omen,” Adeline said. “But I think that’s just cause they only usually choose that rune for people who are already sick.” 

 

Clary sighed. “Perfect. More bad omens. Just what I need.”

 

“I gotta say—“

 

Max and Adeline jumped at the new voice suddenly chiming in to the the conversation. Max met Adeline’s eye and saw the embarrassment in her face. She hand’t heard the vampire either. They were supposed to be better trained that that. 

 

“It seems super weird that people who grow up in a world full of magic and special powers and mythical creatures would believe in omens and superstitions.”

 

“I saw you knock on wood the other day,” Clary replied calmly. “And you _are_ a mythical creature.”

 

Simon shrugged. His arm was wrapped around a few books that he was pressing against his chest. If his pale skin didn’t make his hair look just a little too dark, you’d hardly be able to tell that he was a vampire.

 

“But I didn’t start out a mythical creature,” he continued as he came up to the table. “I didn’t grow up surrounded by other mythical creatures, from a long line of mythical creatures. I’m a mythical immigrant. You guys are mythical natives.” He shrugged again. “Think about it.”

 

He set the stack of books he was carrying down on the table between Max and Clary. They were strange. Big, but thin. The one on top was called “The Amazing Spiderman”. Underneath it were a few things that looked like really small newspapers, and then two more big, thin books. Max had never seen anything like them. 

 

“You ready for dinner?”

 

 “‘Dinner’ seems like a stretch. I am ready to go to Luke’s to watch the rest of you eat, yes.” He gave Clary a look that would have seemed stern if he wasn’t still smiling a little. “You’re not skipping out on your study session early, are you? You’re going to be a bad example for the kids.”

 

There was a drawing on the front of the book, all bright colors and dark outlines. Someone who was probably human, in a blue and red suit with spiderweb lines on it, was fighting a big green creature that looked a lot like a Shibrato demon with his bare hands.

 

“I think I’m just distracting them anyway.” She tucked her books into her bag and stood up, pointing at each of them in turn. “You might want to read this book about the Accords though. It’s uh, illuminating.”

 

“Fun. Mythical politics.”

 

“Um,” Max said, pointing at the stack of weird books. “Can I look at these?”

 

“Sure thing, bud,” Simon replied. 

 

Simon was even weirder than Clary. He seemed to have no interest in being a vampire, even though he was one. Vampires were supposed to be fancy and mean, and Simon kept acting like he was a normal mundane. And no one would tell Max why, but for some reason Simon seemed to live here in the Institute. Max and Adeline had been trying to figure out why, but it was hard for them to work together.

 

The first day Max had gotten home, after his weird lunch with his father, his mother had taken him out for an even weirder dinner. She’d told him to very careful of the Pangborns. She’d said that he could talk to Adeline, that they couldn’t be friends, but it would be good to make her think that they were. She also told him to never answer any of Clarence Pangborn’s questions about anyone in his family, or Clary, and then taught him some things he could say to make it sound like he had answered. 

 

When he had asked her why Alec hadn’t gotten married, she’d told him they would talk about it later. 

 

When he’d tried to go ask Isabelle about everything their mother had told him, she and Alec, and his parents, and Clary and Lydia had all been having a very loud argument about Simon. Max had snuck into Alec’s room later to ask him about it, but Alec hadn’t been there. 

 

Which left Max with no choice but to try and learn things with Adeline, because at least her father told her what was happening in the Institute sometimes. He just had to remember what his mother said about the Pangborns, that they might not always know the truth, or might understand events differently than his family did and he should always be careful of anything Clarence or Adeline told him. 

 

It was all making Max wish he hadn’t come home at all. He had been home for days and his whole family had made him think that something horrible had happened, and he shouldn’t ask about it because they were all too upset to tell him about it. Adeline’s guess was that Lydia had broken up with Alec because she loved someone else and Alec was heartbroken. It made more sense than anything Max had come up with. 

 

Simon’s picture book was cool. So cool Max had forgotten to eavesdrop on Simon and Clary while he looked at it. 

 

“You can borrow those if you want, Max,” Simon said. “I finished them all.”

 

Borrowing books from vampire didn’t sound like the sort of thing that was allowed… but it also seemed pretty unlikely to be something that Max would get in trouble for in a world where Isabelle was always angry and Alec might have secretly moved out of the Institute. Max scooted the books toward himself. 

 

“Thanks, Simon.”

 

Simon and Clary left the library, still talking in the way they did. The way that didn’t make sense to anyone else around them. 

 

Max turned the page he was on and gasped at the huge picture of the boy in a red and blue suit swinging through the air between buildings that was revealed.

 

“This is cool.” He lifted it up and showed it to Adeline, who was giving him a very serious look. 

 

“What?”

 

“I figured out what happened,” Adeline said. “With Alec. I didn’t know if I should say anything in front of Clary.”

 

Max set the book down. He had to be careful, and remember that Adeline might not be telling him the truth. 

 

“How did you find out?”

 

“My dad told me about it. Do you want to know what happened?”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn, came to Alec’s wedding, just before Lydia was going to draw the Union rune on him, and Alec stopped the wedding and kissed Magnus Bane in front of everyone.”

 

Max tried to imagine Alec kissing anyone. It didn’t seem likely. “But I thought Magnus Bane was a boy.”

 

Adeline shrugged. “He is.”

 

This had to be a lie. This didn’t even make sense. But his mother had told him not to let Adeline or her father ever think that Max knew they were lying. “I don’t think Shadowhunters do things like that. Why would Alec kiss _a boy_ at his wedding to _a girl_?”

 

Adeline bit her lip. “I think… I think sometimes boys only like boys. Like… there are vampires like that. And Mundanes. And I think Warlocks and Seelies too.”

 

“But not Shadowhunters,” Max said. “You didn’t say anything about Shadowhunters.”

 

“I… I’m not sure if Shadowhunters can be like that,” Adeline said, her forehead scrunching up.

 

Max thought about Alec telling him that a complicated grown up thing had happened at the wedding. About how angry everyone was. About how Alec didn’t seem to be living in the Institute anymore. 

 

He cleared his throat. He didn’t want Adeline to think he sounded scared. 

 

“Is it… bad? I mean… if Shadowhunters don’t do it but Downworlders and Mundanes do… then it must be bad, right?”

 

Adeline rubbed at the rune on her hand. “When we lived at the Amsterdam Institute last year, my dad bought me a bike, and I got to ride it around the city a little bit. One time I hit the curb weird and I fell down and the front wheel broke. This big man came over and tied a handkerchief around my knee cause it was bleeding, and he had some tools with him and he fixed my bike. He gave me a card, and told me I could come to his store sometime and he could teach me how to fix my bike if my parents said it was okay. So I went with my dad, and there were other kids and parents there, and we learned how to patch tires and take the wheels off and put them back on from this man and his husband. Cause they were both boys and they were married to each other. And his husband made us all hot chocolate, and I saw them kiss while we were there.”

 

Max wondered what any of this had to do with anything, but Adeline wasn’t done yet. 

 

“And my dad gave them some money for their shop, because they let kids who couldn’t afford bikes come in and fix tires and clean up the shop until they could buy a bike. So… they were nice people, and they did good things. Alec is nice. And he’s a good teacher. And my dad says he’s a good Shadowhunter.” She shrugged. “So… maybe it’s okay if he kissed a boy?”

 

“Your dad is here to make sure we aren’t doing anything wrong,” Max replied. “Does he think it’s okay?”

 

Adeline’s expression went tight for a moment. “I don’t know. _I_ think it’s okay, though. I’ll tell him it’s okay.”

 

Max nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

 

There was an awkward pause. Max pulled the stack of books Simon had leant him toward himself and started to put them carefully into his bag. “Kissing… is gross though, right?”

 

Adeline shrugged again. “I saw two of my tutors kissing _a lot_ one time. They didn’t seem to think it was gross. But Benny- the guy- was gross. He always smelled like old maple syrup. That’s another thing I like about Alec. You don’t want someone teaching you bow and arrow to smell weird. Alec just smells like deodorant.”

 

Max pulled his bag into his lap. “I think I’m going to go study in my room for a little while.”

 

Adeline smiled, gave him one of her little waves, and went back to the book in front of her, as though nothing important or different or strange had just happened. 

 


	8. Intelligence Gathering 2

 

Alec stood in front of his bed looking at the stuff spread across it. There was a pile of toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, plastic disposable razor, face soap, a little thing of cheap lotion because Alec’s face soap made his skin feel dry and tight, and a little bottle of the mousse Alec put in his hair. 

 

Next to the toiletries was a pile of dirty clothes. Next to the dirty clothes was the overnight bag Magnus had given him, mostly empty, and next to the overnight bag were neatly folded clean clothes. 

 

At the foot of the bed, closest to Alec was a line of items: Soft, blue flannel pajama pants. A glass pot of face-specific moisturizer, with a few Korean characters etched into the top. A facial cleanser with the same characters on it. Similarly fancy shaving cream, which came out blue and shaped like a rose when you pressed the button at the top and smelled like rain. A much nicer razor.  A pot of hair pomade that Magnus kept putting in Alec’s hair for him. Three small, subtle black square boxes, the first of which contained a variety of green powders, the second an opaque gel concealer, and the third a matte powder. And lastly,  a little black leather toiletry bag, with straps and snaps that kept all the things inside of it organized. 

 

The only thing in the line that wasn’t a gift from Magnus was Alec’s phone, which was unlocked, and opened to Alec and Magnus’s ongoing text conversation. 

 

Magnus had asked Alec if he was coming over again and Alec… kind of felt like the correct answer was “Not tonight.”

 

Alec had slept at Magnus’s apartment seven out of the ten nights that had passed since the wedding. He was ready to go back tonight. He had his own clothes folded and ready to tuck away into the overnight bag. He had all the toiletries that Magnus had pulled out of thin air carefully tucked into their spots in the soft leather toiletry bag. And on his phone he had an invitation text. 

 

But…

 

And that was the biggest issue. But what? Because the answer was: Kind of everything. Alec was having so much trouble jamming everything that had been happening with Magnus into words. He could barely understand it as feelings. 

 

Alec wanted to be out of the Institute, and it was so much easier to relax, and to sleep, in Magnus’s loft. 

 

 _But_ Magnus had friends and clients and political obligations, and his own projects, and Alec worried that Magnus would get exasperated with Alec inserting himself into so much of Magnus’s private time. 

 

Alec wanted to be with Magnus, feeling that high, fluttering feeling of happiness that he got from Magnus smiling at him, or listening to him, or telling him something that Alec could tell he hadn’t told anyone in a long time. 

 

 _But_ they’d been dating for less than two weeks. It was so much, so fast and part of Alec was worried that being with Magnus too often this early could somehow wreck that feeling. You couldn’t go from refusing you had feelings for someone to practically living with them immediately like that. Especially because Alec had no idea what he was doing. Magnus had been with people until they’d died. He’d had periods of going through a different lover every day of the week. He’d been in relationships that were longer that Alec’s entire life expectancy. All Alec had was the last ten days. He was afraid that he was going to get in over his head and ruin something. 

 

Alec wanted to kiss Magnus, and feel the warm swaths of the warlock’s skin under his hands as Magnus undressed. He wanted to feel the lurch and tingle in his stomach as Magnus pressed him back against the bed and that lightning strike feeling that surged through him when Magnus kissed his neck. 

 

But he didn’t know if he wanted more than that yet, and, despite what Magnus said to the contrary, Alec didn’t feel like he could keep asking for that every night with out giving Magnus more, and Alec needed more time before he was ready to do that.

 

Alec also _didn’t_ want… this. Thousands of dollars worth of presents spread across his bed. _Personal_ things. Things he never would have gotten for himself and would never have been able to picture himself owning two weeks ago. He had three small boxes of _make up_ for Raziel’s sake, which probably cost more than Isabelle’s entire significant stash put together. Magnus had shown him how to use the make up to hide a large bruise on his neck that had been way too high up to  hope to cover up with just his collar, and somehow that was so much more uncomfortable than letting his sister do it just that once because of an important meeting.

 

Alec wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, when it wasn’t something that mattered to him about Magnus. He liked Magnus in his glittery makeup and intricate clothes and piles of necklaces and bracelets and rings… but he felt weirdly bad about it on himself. Even something as harmless as using the fancy moisturizer made Alec feel almost dirty in a way he couldn’t quite place, and Alec didn’t want to tell Magnus that until he could figure out why he felt like that, because he knew Magnus was just trying to be nice. 

 

On top of all of those things, there was also a strange swirl of guilt about the fact that he’d barely spoken to Izzy or Max lately, and didn’t feel like he was doing enough to find Jace, even if he had asked Magnus to track half of what Jace owned recently. 

 

So when Lydia knocked on his door and handed him a report and told him that he needed to read it and be prepared for a meeting first thing in the morning, he was relieved. He texted Magnus, told him that some Institute business had come up, and asked for a rain check before he packed everything spread across his bed into the overnight bag. 

 

His phone buzzed on his bedspread. 

 

_Another time then. Sleep well, Alexander._

 

Alec looked at the text for a while, before tentatively typing out _You too, Magnus._

 

There was a sort of…pause feeling. Like something else should happen between them before Alec moved on to the next part of his night. 

 

After a moment of watching his phone, not sure what he expected it to do, Alec tossed it onto his bed, and dug the flannel pajama pants out of the overnight bag. They were soft, and cotton, and as far as Alec could tell they weren’t designer or made from some sort of exotic animal fur. 

 

They still smelled a little like Magnus’s bedroom. 

 

Alec slipped them on, and after a moment, decided that if he was going to stay up to read the report he might as well make himself comfortable doing it. He slipped his phone in his pocket, the report under his arm, and dropped by the kitchen to make a cup of mint tea on his way to the library. There was an old fireplace at the back of the library that hardly anyone used, surrounded by some old armchairs that could be pretty comfortable once you had the lumps in the stuffing arranged right. 

 

To Alec’s surprise, the lights were on in the library when he got there. For a second, he considered calling out to see who was there, but thankfully, his brain was faster than his mouth. Only institute leaders had been given this report, and there was an eight o’clock meeting about it in the morning. The people most likely to be in the library this time of night were all people that Alec didn’t want to talk to, and Lydia. 

 

And even Lydia… there were conversations he probably needed to have with Lydia that he’d been putting off and would prefer to put off a little while longer. 

 

Alec moved along the right side wall library, avoiding both the alcove of the left hand side where he knew his mother sometimes liked to work, and the tables at the center where his father sometimes wrote out the first, long-hand version of his reports. Peeking through the shelves as he moved across the library, Alec was able to determine that both of his parents’ usual spots were empty before he found a way to approach the cluster of armchairs near the fire place without being seen. 

 

The fireplace was already lit, and there was one lone figure tucked into one of the armchairs. 

 

“Max?” Alec asked, stepping out from behind the shelf. 

 

Max jumped a few inches into the air, whipped his head in Alec’s direction, and stared at Alec like he’d never seen him before. 

 

Alec felt his stomach sink. With everything that had had happened in the last two weeks, his little brother giving him a look he’d never seen on the kid’s face before could only mean one thing. He’d missed his window. He should have gone to Max early, talked to him before their parents had, not just trusted his instinct that both of them would have been too… dismissive and diplomatic to tell Max the truth. He should have overcome his own fear and discomfort and talked to Max before Max heard about him from someone else.

 

“No one ever comes back here,” Max said finally. “You can come sit with me. I made a fire.” He gave Alec a strange little smile. “I used a heat rune. I’m getting pretty good at that one.”

 

Alec smiled back and came to join his youngest brother in the cluster of arm chairs. “Are you up this late studying?”

 

Max shook his head and bit his lip. “No. I studied enough today. I was… um… drawing.”

 

“Oh… I didn’t know you did that,” Alec said as he settled down into one of the arm chairs, and set the Clave report on the ground next to him.

 

“I’m trying to learn. Clary is teaching me. She told me to try to draw something, but like… really look at it? Like… instead of trying to draw the shape it’s supposed to be, you have to draw the shapes that are actually there.”

 

“I don’t think I get it, Max.”

 

Max sighed deeply. “I don’t think I do either.” He put the pencil he had been holding in his mouth and shifted around, rearranging the two large, flat books he’d had in his lap, one of which, Alec now realized, was a sketchbook. 

 

“Um… do you want to see?” Max asked shyly. 

 

“Sure.”

 

Max turned in the arm chair so that he was facing forward in it instead of slung over the arms and extended the sketchbook toward Alec, who took it. 

 

“This is pretty good, actually,” Alec said. 

 

Max snorted. 

 

“I mean, for just starting to learn? Like, I can tell this is a building and this is a… person… frog thing?”

 

Alec pointed to the figure in the center of the drawing with an apologetic smile. 

 

Max shook his head and picked up the other book he’d been holding when Alec walked in. He opened it and held it out to Alec, showing off a colorful, detailed, full page picture. “I’m trying to draw this. It’s Spiderman.”

 

Alec squinted at the picture Max was showing him. “He’s not a spider.”

 

“No. He just has like… spider powers. He’s really cool. This is called a comic book. Simon leant me a bunch of them.”

 

“Simon? The vampire?”

 

“Yeah. He’s really nice. I like him a lot.”

 

Alec cleared his throat. “Look, Max, I know Simon is… friendly with us… but you still need to be careful around him. You’re not a full-fledged Shadowhunter yet.”

 

“I will be soon,” Max said. “My rune ceremony is only a couple days away.”

 

“Runes are a big part of being a Shadowhunter,” Alec told Max as the latter started digging through the big stack of comic books next to him, “but it’s not the only part. I don’t think Simon would hurt you on purpose, but he’s still learning how to deal with new instincts.”

 

“I like Simon,” Max repeated stubbornly. “He let me ask him questions about comic books for almost forty five minutes today. Simon is the only person in the entire Institute who will answer me when I ask a question and doesn’t just say that I’m too young to understand.”

 

“Comic books are different than demon hunting and Clave politics.”

 

Max didn’t answer, he just pulled a book out of the stack and studiously flipped through the pages. 

 

“Max?” Alec asked, sudden worried that he’d pissed Max off in the only conversation he and Max had had since Max got back. 

 

“Simon gave me this comic book today,” Max said, lifting it up so that Alec could see the page it was open to.

 

Alec’s heart stopped. 

 

It was a series of drawings, all sectioned off in squares of sequential action. Two characters, both young men, one big and blond and the other smaller, more slender with black hair, talked, smiled, and— in the middle section, the biggest one— kissed. An obvious, open-mouthed kiss. 

 

Max pointed a shaking finger at the blonde one. “This is Hulkling. He’s part alien.” He moved his finger to the other one. “And this is Wiccan, he’s umm… sort of magic? Like a warlock?”

 

Alec barely heard him, a strange hum of panic had started up in his ears. He didn’t seem to be able to tear his eyes away from the page in front of him. 

 

“They’re good guys. Um. Superheroes. They save people. And they have a bunch of friends who save people. They all have powers or special abilities. Hulkling and Wiccan can fly. And they um… are each other’s boyfriend? I think… I think you have a boyfriend.”

 

The hum of panic moved up into a scream, before evaporating and leaving Alec feeling like his ears had popped. 

 

Two realizations hit Alec very hard, and very suddenly. One, he and Magnus had not used the word boyfriend, and Alec hadn’t even let himself think it yet. And two: he hadn’t actually had to come out like this to anyone. Isabelle had figured it out through some sort of osmosis, and there had been that fight with his mother when he’d yelled at her that he’d always been the kind of guy who would kiss another guy. 

 

But this was so different. Max was looking up at him with big, innocent eyes. He wasn’t accusatory or disappointed. He was upset that no one told him the truth and he was pointing at a drawing of two men that he’d called heroes. Two men who were kissing, and asking Alec to confirm a… a guess that Alec was like them. 

 

“Max,” Alec started. “It’s…”

 

“Don’t say complicated!” Max huffed. 

 

“Okay…” Alec said. “Umm… yes. I have… I have a boyfriend.”

 

Max nodded matter of factly, and finally closed the comic book. “And you’re never here  at the Institute anymore because… you live with him now?”

 

Alec shook his head. “No, no Max. I still live here. I’ve just been,” Alec sucked in air, feeling suddenly winded. 

 

He needed to tell the truth. Max was smart, and was clearly getting information from somewhere. He should get the right information and he should be getting it from Alec. He trusted Simon because Simon told him the truth. Alec could do that. 

 

“Okay, Max, Shadowhunters have obligations, okay? We’re suppose to learn to be warriors, fight demons, get married, have children and raise them to be warriors and fight demons and get married. Okay? And that’s a good thing.”

 

“That’s what dad told me.”

 

Alec nodded, maybe they could come back to that later. “And that’s what _I_ was supposed to want, and _I tried_ to do that. Mom and Dad wanted me to do that. And our family… needed to be bonded with another important family, like Lydia’s. And I liked Lydia… I just… I didn’t like her enough and I knew Magnus…” 

 

Alec wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. He had no idea what he’d known about Magnus and he didn’t know how to explain to a nine year old that kissing Magnus had flooded him with fear and desire and relief and that he had just wanted to be gay in peace for a couple hours and had possibly bitten off more than he could chew because he seemed to have upended his entire culture and had no idea what he was doing anymore. 

 

“I knew I liked Magnus,” Alec finally said. “Like… a lot. Enough to…”

 

“Kiss him. You kissed him at your wedding. Adeline said she learned that.”

 

“Yeah. Max. I kissed him at the wedding. And I’m… I’m gone a lot now because I like being with him and it’s easier to go to his apartment sometimes.”

 

Max nodded solemnly at this and opened the comic book back up. “Do you kiss him at his apartment?””

 

“Yeah,” Alec said. 

 

“That’s good,” Max said, holding the comic book back out at Alec, this time showing a different collection of characters. “In comic books, kissing makes people smile.” He pointed at another character, who was, in fact smiling, though there didn’t seem to be any kissing in the picture. “You never smile.”

 

“I do now, sometimes,” Alec said. 

 

Max nodded, closed the comic book again and stared down at the cover. “I was afraid you did something bad and Mom and Dad made you go live somewhere else.”

 

“No, Max. I’m staying here. Everything’s going to be okay. I didn’t… do anything wrong.” It was the first time he’d said it, and he was amazed at the sudden lightness he felt in his body as Max nodded. 

 

“Okay,” Max said. “Okay. I’m glad. Do you want to sit with me for a little while?”

 

“Yeah, Max. I’ve got some boring Clave work to do.” He retrieved the report off the floor with shaking hands. 

 

“Maybe, if you sit really still while you read it I could try to draw you,” Max replied. 

 

“Yeah, Max, that sounds great.”

 

 

 


	9. Research and Development

Maryse was relieved to be the first person in the conference room. She dropped her thoroughly read and notated report in front of one of the chairs in the center of the table, took a mug from the tray that had been set out, and poured some coffee out of the samovar. A few flakes of dust rose to the top of the liquid, and she sighed and added a bit of cream to her cup anyway. 

 

As she sat down she opened her notes, but instead reading them, found herself staring at the page, not taking anything in. 

 

Hodge had hated her. 

 

He’d hated the entire institute. All of them except the children. He’d been pretty adamant about that in his testimony. About how he’d seen himself in Alec, particularly, and how he’d always attempted to be a refuge for the Lightwood children. 

 

A refuge from their harridan of a mother. 

 

Hodge’s feelings about her, any of them, really, were immaterial. And his interpretation of her children’s feelings was less important still. The Clave wasn’t going to take any action on the ramblings of a traitor trying to reduce his sentence. 

 

Maryse sipped her coffee and refocused on the report in front of her, skimming through her notes to refresh herself again. Late last night a full, if lightly redacted, version of Hodge’s testimony, and a report of the Clave’s investigation thus far had been dropped off at her door. She’d been two pages deep before she realized that Robert’s copy hadn’t been left with her. Either Robert had already told Pangborn, against her wishes, that the two of them were in separate rooms, or Pangborn was that good. 

 

She’d filled the margins of her report with notes and little marks. She’d put small stars next to all the points that she thought proved her allegiance to the Clave. Anything she expected Robert to use against her was circled. There were arrows next to anything she thought would be used against her children.

 

Or, at least, that’s what she’d started doing. As she got further into the report, she’d started putting a square next to anything that specifically targeted Jace. There were a lot more squares than arrows. 

 

The conference room door opened. Maryse flinched, but recovered before she could be seen. 

 

Lydia walked in, nodded at Maryse and poured herself a mug of coffee before sitting in the chair to the right of where Pangborn would presumably be leading this meeting. 

 

Lydia spent a moment adjusting her papers, then looked up, training her gaze on Maryse. 

 

“There’s no mention anyone in this report of why the Clave decided to send Hodge here to begin with. To me, it seems completely obvious that he would grow to resent you. Why not send him to another Institute?”

 

Maryse took Lydia in for a moment. They’d hardly spoken since their exchange in the sick bay. Maybe she was trying to reach out. 

 

“No one else would take a tutor with a circle rune,” Maryse answered carefully. 

 

“And the Clave wouldn’t force a tutor who hadn’t been in the circle to work for you?”

 

Maybe not. 

 

Another day, when she’d gotten more sleep, when she wasn’t waiting for her idiot husband to get to this meeting on time, when she wasn’t barely hanging on as everything went to hell, Maryse might have refused to engage. But today she wanted to yell at someone, and Lydia had walked in here and practically begged for it. 

 

“Keep your self righteousness to yourself, Branwell,” Maryse hissed. “You think you’re questioning of the Clave is so clear and so justified? You think, if our places had been switched, that you would have spotted Valentine for what he was because you only know what he became. That’s all you were ever taught. You have the luxury of hindsight and you’re hurling curses and accusations at me after you tried to call off a trial for treason, allowed a vampire to live inside Institute walls, alongside children, and while you’re actively campaigning for all of us to just ignore the fact that Alec is endangering the thousand year old tradition that  has kept our ranks strong. Don’t smirk at me like you’re not three times the rebel I ever was.”

 

Lydia’s cheeks pinked. “Don’t snap at me like you don’t understand the difference between your rebellion and mine.”

 

The door opened again before Maryse could answer. Robert walked in, got his coffee, and fell into a seat next to Maryse, smacking his lips as he took a deep gulp from his mug. Maryse shoved down her desire to shout at him too, and after a few moments of all of them staring at each other and listening to Robert fail to drink coffee like a civilized human being, the door opened again, and Alec walked in. 

 

They hadn’t spoken since their run in in the hallway a week ago. He looked different. His hair was shorter, combed differently, but there was something else. Something in his face that Maryse couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

 

Alec looked around the room, but Maryse was sure his gaze lingered on her for a few moments before he settled down next to Lydia. 

 

The two of them were making small talk when the door opened one last time, and Clarence Pangborn walked in. 

 

“You are a punctual bunch aren’t you?” he said lightly. “Okay. Let me get some coffee in my system, and then we’ll get started.”

 

**

 

Rooster in a hen house? Hen in a dog house? Sheep in a wolf…pack?

 

There was some sort of pithy, rustic saying that encapsulated the feeling Simon had trying to casually walk from the Spartan dormitory that Lydia had assigned to him, to the Institute’s kitchen, where Simon still had a few bags of blood set aside. 

 

The few Shadowhunters he crossed paths with, all statuesque and beatiful, looked at him with, at best, wrinkled noses, and at worst, clear menace. He tried to smile at one woman, who looked more confused to see him walking past than anything else. Her look had turned to disgust pretty quickly.

 

It was sort of like high school. 

 

If everyone in high school had been heavily tattooed and trained to kill him. 

 

He wasn’t going to be able to stay here in the Institute forever. He was only here now because Lydia seemed to think he’d wind up being useful for something, and Simon didn’t know what that something could be. Plus, while he  didn’t have an exhaustive understanding of Shadowhunter history or politics, he could tell that Lydia and the Lightwoods were clinging on to this Institute by a thread. If they lost power, he might not survive the transfer as a vampire in a building full of vampire killers.

 

But, since there wasn’t much he could do about it right now, he slipped into the kitchen, breathed a sigh of relief to find it empty, grabbed a pot out of the cupboard and filled it with water. He set it on the stove to boil, and found his thermos in the dishwasher. It could have been normal. He could have been making pasta, or ramen. Until he opened the fridge and reached into the crisper drawer for a bag of O negative. 

 

Simon looked down at the bag, grossed out by the sluggish red liquid inside, and more grossed out by the sharp feeling of hunger and desire that the thought of it created in him. Stomach churning, Simon turned to the stove, and dropped the bag into the hot water.

 

A quiet sound caught his attention as he watched the bag sink, then bob back up to the surface of the water.

 

It was one of those things where he couldn’t tell if it was just a quiet noise or something that his vampire senses were picking up. It was sort of a snuffling noise. Simon turned, and heard it again. The noise sent a weird jolt through him. It was like the opposite of the feeling of being brought back to the world after zoning totally in on some sort of task. An anticipatory silence filled his mind.

 

Another snuffle. 

 

Coming from the pantry. 

 

Simon moved with a weird, unnatural sort of gait and opened the door. 

 

Someone in the pantry gasped. Simon felt a prickle in his gums as his fangs slid out.

 

The feeling of his teeth extending in his mouth finally shook him out of it. 

 

No. No! He wasn’t stalking prey in the middle of the Institute. He was heating up blood like it was a prepackaged meal, and he was going to drink it out of a thermos and pretend it was tomato soup. He wasn’t going to be that sort of vampire. He didn’t need to be that sort of vampire. 

 

Through the darkness of the pantry, Simon could see the source of the snuffling noise. Max Lightwood was folded up on a pantry shelf about six feet off the floor, with his head against his knees. He didn’t need the light to see Max, but Simon turned it on anyway. 

 

Max wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Simon?”

 

“Hey, bud,” Simon replied. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t really a ‘hey bud’ sort of person. His fangs retracted. “You okay?”

 

Max wiped his sleeve across his face again and hopped down to the ground easily. “I’m fine.”

 

“You sure about that?” 

 

Max’s hand curled around something he was holding. He opened his mouth like was going to say something else but stopped. “I’m fine,” he repeated. 

 

For a moment, Simon considered pushing. But he didn’t know anything about kids. And while he was developing a soft spot for Max, in reality they’d only spent forty five minutes talking. Ever. Simon was a vampire, Max was a Shadowhunter, and a child, and they shouldn’t be standing in a dimly lit pantry together. Especially not when Simon was starting to notice that light, prickly vampire hunger feeling building. 

 

“Alright,” Simon said. “If you say so.”

 

Max nodded, and looked down at whatever he was trying to hide in his hand. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I’m making breakfast,” Simon said. “And I heard a weird noise in here.”

 

“Breakfa—oh.” Max looked suddenly worried. “Blood?”

 

“Yeah.” Simon turned and walked back out of the pantry. Max followed him. To Simon’s surprise, Max didn’t hurry out of the kitchen. He just sat down at the table near the cupboards. 

 

Simon found a big serving spoon and used it to fish the bag of blood out of the pot, cut the top off the bag with a scissors, and very carefully poured the contents of the bag into the thermos, before throwing the bag away, trying not to think about how glaringly weird it looked sitting there on top of normal garbage, like banana peels and egg shells. 

 

The smell of the warm blood was making him achey and lightheaded. The craving for it wasn’t like the craving for food. It was more primal. Drinking the blood was much like what Simon imagined getting a fix was like for a junkie. It even made him feel a little high. He scrambled for the cap to the thermos and screwed it down tight. But he could still taste the blood on the air.  He needed to get some where private. 

 

“Simon?” Max asked, his voice quavering, and just a little stuffed up. “Can you… do you have to go somewhere? Or can we… can we talk about comic books like yesterday?”

 

“Uhh…”

 

“You can… you can drink your blood in front of me,” Max said quickly. “It’s okay.”

 

Simon’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t. But would it feel worse to try and pretend it was normal, until it took the edge off the hunger and Simon powered through the floaty high feeling, or to abandon a nine year old in tears?

 

Unable to shake the feeling that he was doing something wholly inappropriate, like smoking a blunt in front of a child, Simon took a seat at the table, and unscrewed the thermos cap again.

 

“What does it… what does it taste like?”

 

“Pennies,” Simon answered, before succumbing to the smell and taking a gulp. 

 

It was only partly true. The flavor probably was ‘pennies’ but the flavor didn’t matter. It was about the experience. It was like drinking fireworks and diamond shine. It was like the glow of sated desire and full body happiness you got after sex. It was warmth in his dead body. Simon sighed in relief as the feeling washed over him, wiping away the tight, prickling aches of hunger that had been nagging at him since his last bag, but let out a little cry of dismay when his fangs slid out, unbidden again.

 

Max gasped. Simon saw his eyes go wide and his mouth drop open. Max gave a weird half lurch, like he’d caught himself halfway through an instinct to throw himself back from the table and run.  

 

Slowly, Max leaned forward again. “Umm… is it good?”

 

Simon just shook his head and took another gulp.

 

“Simon? Can I… can I ask you about Batman?”

 

It was a very strange and uncomfortable fifteen minutes, while Max lead Simon through some very serious questions about all of Batman’s gadgets and where superheroes got the gadgets they used, and Simon’s answers basically parkoured their way through Dr. Strange, Spiderman, The Red Skull, and Star Lord as he tried to answer through his fresh, warm blood high. Max asked him how he’d learned so much about comics, and Simon told him about all the hours he and Clary had spent in Midtown Comics back when they were Max’s age. Simon had been able to calm down enough to retract his fangs just before Max quietly set something on the table top. 

 

It was a glass. A plain, short glass tumbler, with a rune burned into the side of it. 

 

“Batman has a listening device,” Max said seriously. “It’s like… a big circle attached to a straw you put in your ear?”

 

Simon nodded, he could picture exactly the thing Max was talking about. 

 

“I stole a stele from the training room and carved an enhanced hearing rune on the cup. And I found  drill in the maintenance closet and drilled a hole in the pantry wall this morning. The conference room is on the other side.”

 

Simon took a moment to marvel at this. His projects at nine years old had focused a lot more on trying to make his own pixie sticks with straws and Kool-Aid.

 

“Umm. I learned… bad stuff.” Max said, looking down at the table top

 

Simon gulped from his thermos again and waited for Max to extrapolate. 

 

Max looked up at Simon, eyes wide and trusting for a few moments. But he shut down. Something in his eyes shuttered. His mouth went tight and he grabbed the glass off the table. “I really need to study for tomorrow,” he said dully. “Thanks, Simon.”

 

He darted out the door. 

 

Simon felt a line of coolness at the side of his mouth and brushed his thumb over it, looking down with a swoop in his full stomach to see a smear of blood across the skin. 

 

**

 

Magnus finished his notes on the spell he’d been researching and closed the Book of the White. Then he carried it to a safe he’d hidden behind a bookcase, and locked it away. You could never be too careful. Just because no one had noticed the fact that he had quietly slipped out with the book after waking Jocelyn didn’t mean that no one was looking for it, or might remember who’d had it last. 

 

From the safe, he puttered into the kitchen. Alec should be arriving soon. He’d sounded agitated on the phone, and hadn’t offered any sort of opinion on dinner, or drinks, though he had shot down Magnus’s suggestion that they go to the opera, and then followed up the “no” with a gentler “Not tonight, but soon?”

 

Magnus dithered for a moment, then magicked up a charcuterie board and two glasses of red wine. He was a bit peckish, and Alec was usually open to a late dinner. He plucked a cracker off the board, and put a slice of venison sausage and a piece of apple on it, then popped it into his mouth. He snapped his fingers a few more times, adding a little bit of soft, ambient light to his living room. 

 

He hoped nothing had gone terribly wrong at the Institute today. So much of his and Alec’s time together over the last two weeks had been about fallout. Fallout from Alec kissing him at the wedding. Fallout from Jace being kidnapped. Fallout from the Clave investigation. It felt as though Alec primarily came here for escape. Magnus understood that things were unequivocally disastrous in Alec’s life right now, but he still worried that serving as a salve and refuge for Alec for too long would create a pattern they needed to break out of sooner rather than later. It wasn’t the most auspicious start to a relationship.

 

A tingle at the back of his neck alerted Magnus to someone walking through the wards. He stepped down out of the kitchen, heading toward the door.

 

“Come in!” he shouted as he heard footsteps approaching. 

 

Alec came through the door, and with uncanny nephilim speed, had dropped his bag and quiver, lunged forward, to grab Magnus in a fireman carry, and seemed to be hauling him off to his bedroom, before Magnus had even managed to say hello. 

 

Magnus laughed. This _was_ a rather auspicious start to an evening, and his _favorite_ precursor to a late supper.  

 

Alec dropped Magnus onto his bed ungently and fell onto him instantly, digging his arms under Magnus’s back and pulling him up against Alec’s body with a yank.

 

Something was off. They never started off this frantically. They worked up to it with kissing and groping undressing. There was always something permission-seeking in Alec in bed, like he had a series of steps in his head, and he was conscienciously working his way through them, in order. Magnus set his hands gently to the side of Alec’s face, and kissed him slowly, trying to bring down the temperature and intensity of the evening before things got out of hand. 

 

It didn’t work. Alec bored down into another bruising kiss, and started to undo Magnus’s fly as he moved down Magnus’s body, dropping a kisses that felt more like bombs on Magnus’s chest and stomach before he finally hit the waistband of Magnus’s underwear. 

 

“Stop,” Magnus said clearly. 

 

Alec let go of Magnus’s clothes and lifted his head. “You wanted me to the last time I was here. You asked me to. I want to do it now.”

 

Magnus lifted himself up, and pulled his body out from under Alec’s by a few inches. “I’m not going to explain the difference between then and now to you.”

 

Alec dropped back onto his butt. Magnus did his fly back up. “It’s a little too early for you to be using me carnally to work out your frustrations,” he said carefully.

 

Alec’s jaw dropped. “I wasn’t… I didn’t…” He pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I didn’t think of it like that. You’re right. I don’t… I don’t want you to feel used.”

 

Magnus sighed. He’d been single longer than he’d thought. He was was rusty and Alec was inexperienced and he’d forgotten how hard it could be to be new to something. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Alec said.

 

“It’s okay. I know that’s not what you meant to do,” Magnus tried again. “We’re still getting to know each other. This isn’t a _bad_ way to seek comfort from someone, but we just aren’t there yet. How about we eat, and you talk to me, and then if it’s still what you want, you can carry me back in here and we can start over,” he brushed his thumb over Alec’s cheek. “Because that was pretty hot.”

 

Alec nodded, but didn’t smile or meet Magnus’s eyes.

 

Alec grabbed his bag from the door on the way to the couch, and Magnus floated the charcuterie board and the wine over to them. 

 

“I take it it was another bad day at the Institute.”

 

Alec picked a piece of cheese off the board and watched it for a moment. “Well. Let’s see. We had a head of Institute meeting this morning.” He shoved the piece of cheese into his mouth and pulled a small booklet of papers out of his bag and handed it to Magnus. “And I learned that Hodge had been plotting with Valentine for months. Lying to all of us for months. Also, my parents didn’t _just_ lie about being in the circle, it turns out my father moved into his own room in the Institute, because they hate each other, and he’s moving back to Idris after Max’s rune ceremony.”

 

“Oh, Alec,” Magnus replied. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Neither revelation was shocking, but Alec didn’t exactly have Magnus’s perspective. 

 

Alec nodded and went on dully. “Yeah. My mom finally lost her temper and screamed out the whole thing after Pangborn and Lydia had left the meeting. Dad begged me not to tell Max. He says he’s going to do it, but… he’s planning to leave at the end of the week. He’s already sent most of his things to his new office. He’s going to tell Max that he’s leaving, and basically disappear the next day.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I went to tell Isabelle after the meeting. Mom told her that Dad had an affair years ago. She wasn’t even surprised that Dad was leaving and she never told me.”

 

Magnus moved closer to Alec on the couch, setting his hand over Alec’s thigh. 

 

Alec let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, and in case things didn’t suck hard enough— unless better evidence than testimony from me, Isabelle, Clary, and Simon can be provided regarding Jace going off with Valentine, the Clave is going to stop looking for him.” He leaned forward and took his wine glass from the coffee table. “And uh…” he grit his teeth for a moment before throwing back a large gulp of wine. “Pangborn asked me if I’d ever slept with Hodge.”

 

“What?” Magnus demanded, a surge of rage hitting him so suddenly that his fingers actually sparked. 

 

Alec jumped, but steadied himself fast. “Yeah. Just in case I’d started to think maybe people were adjusting to the idea of… me.  Hodge was a bad guy. Hodge mentions me in his testimony,” Alec flicked the papers in Magnus’s lap. “He said he saw himself in me. And I mentioned  in the meeting, for some insane reason, that Hodge had told me that once… and Pangborn asked me.” Alec scoffed. “In front of my parents. And Lydia. Cause… of course there might have been something sinister going on between us. Why not?”

 

Magnus looked down at the now singed papers in his hands. “Am I supposed to read this?”

 

“No,” Alec huffed. “What kind of Shadowhunter hands off an official Clave report to a warlock?”

 

Unsure of what he was supposed to say to that, Magnus set the report on the coffee table. “What did you say to Pangborn?”

 

Alec finally turned to face him. “I kinda freaked out. I didn’t see the question coming. At all. I think,”  he gulped from his wine glass. “God, I’m sure they think I did now, and I mean, I never…. It’s not like I ever even thought about… I mean, maybe a little.” Alec sipped from his glass again and turned an embarrassed look at Magnus. “Sorry.”

 

“I get it,” Magnus assured him. “It’s fine.” He brushed Alec’s hair back from his forehead. Alec’s eyes closed for a moment. 

 

“You’re the only person I know who’s been telling me the truth for the last couple months.”

 

Magnus clenched his jaw. There was that little matter of taking Alec’s stele so that Jace and Clary could take the cup… but that was all fixed now. Maybe Alec didn’t need that added to his burden tonight. 

 

A piece of paper sticking out of the Clave report caught Magnus’s eye. He tugged it out. It was a wobbly little pencil drawing. You could just tell that it was Alec because of the scar on his eyebrow.

 

“Hey, what’s this?” Magnus asked, handing Alec the drawing. 

 

Just the barest hint of a smile crept into Alec’s face. “Oh. Max drew that.”

 

“So you finally got to spend some time with him?”

 

Alec nodded. “Yeah he actually… I told him. About you. He asked me about it and I told him the truth.”

 

“How did he take it?” Magnus asked. 

 

“Really well,” Alec said, and some of the worry started to drain from his voice. “He actually… seemed happy for me.”

 

Alec sighed, set the drawing back on top of the Clave report, and turned back to Magnus. “So, the Opera, huh?”

 

Magnus nodded, took Alec’s glass from him, and kissed him as he set the glass on the coffee table. “You were right. Not tonight.”

 


	10. Wetworks

 

This dramatic reveal was way more trouble than it was worth, Isabelle thought, dropping down onto Alec’s bed with a frustrated sigh. 

 

When she’d originally planned this, she had imagined getting here just in time for Alec to walk in from yet another night with Magnus, she could apologize for not telling him something she’d been asked to keep quiet when she was fifteen and they could move into the important part. 

 

But she’d been here for nearly half an hour, and she’d only managed to avoid the temptation to look through Alec’s stuff for the first the twenty minutes, _and_ all she’d actually found was a worn copy of a magazine called “Muscle Twinks” under the mattress, and the fact that Alec’s secret pornography stash was _analogue_ was the most shocking thing about it.

 

It was kind of sad really.

 

Finally, Alec’s door creaked open and Isabelle sat up to see his grumpiest face glowering down at her. 

 

“I know I locked this door,” Alec said when he saw her.

 

“You did. But I had breakfast with Max this morning and he just happened to know that there is a master key duct taped to the back of a filing cabinet in the maintenance closet.”

 

“How on earth does he know that?” Alec asked tossing his overnight bag onto the bed beside her. 

 

Isabelle shrugged. “You know Max. He’s too bright for his own good. He gets that from me.”

 

Alec continued to glare at her, only more so. “What do you want, Izzy?” 

 

“To get apologizing to you out of the way.”

 

“Apologizing to me?” Alec raised an eyebrow. “You’ve known that Dad had an affair for six years. I found out that he was leaving and I came directly to you. I told you about Dad, I told you about the Clave not looking for Jace. I told you everything.”

 

“Yeah, Alec, I knew. I was fifteen, and I found mom drunk in the library and I helped her to bed and she told me that all men were dogs, including my father, and not to tell any of my brothers. And it was scarring and I shouldn’t have listened to her and I’m sorry that you’re having that shock right now.”

 

Alec’s glower turned down a little bit. “You never listen to Mom.”

 

“No, not anymore. Do you blame me? You got to have that bomb dropped on you and go spend the night at your boyfriend’s huge loft, and I went to go make myself a cup of tea, ran into Dad and had to pretend I didn’t know anything about it for the next six years while I wondered why the’d even had mad and if they only had me because Mom was trying to get him to stay. Because we both know she would do something like that.”

 

Alec shoved his overnight bag out of the way and sat down next to her. 

 

“You could have told me.”

 

“You had your own secrets,” Isabelle said. “And you know what you’re like about Mom. I didn’t  want to make anything worse for you.”

 

“What I’m like about Mom?” Alec asked. 

 

“You’re a little…you get sort of defensive of her. You know? You just…” She chanced a glance at Alec, who was giving her that sucking-lemons-and-surprised look, where his mouth puckered all the way out and his eyebrows rose up into his bangs. 

 

“Yeah, I just what?”

 

“You want her to show that she loves you as much as Jace. And I want that too. And it’s easier to feel like Dad is showing us that, but it’s not as sincere when we get it and you know that too.”

 

His eyebrows lowered, but his mouth stayed screwed up in that way Isabelle hated. 

 

“You know Dad told Max that you were going through some sort of phase right now. That you’re just having a hard time and we all just had to wait for you to come to your senses? Like, he’s being accepting to your face, but that’s what he really thinks?”

 

His face went frozen for a second, which was so much worse than the sour look. “Huh. Okay. Well.  I don’t know what Max heard. He showed me a comic book that Simon gave him with a couple of the good guys kissing and asked me if Magnus made me happy.”

 

A lightning strike shock went through Isabelle, leaving a fireplace warmth in her bones. “Max is a good kid. And that was sweet of Simon, to secretly slide Max something to help him understand?”

 

“I guess I didn’t think of it like that,” Alec sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You wanted to get apologizing out of the way? What was apologizing in the way of?”

 

Isabelle sighed and stood up. She’d paced as she rehearsed this next part, and it only made sense to pace as she tried to repeat it. 

 

“We’ve got to be there for Max now.”

 

“I know that,” Alec replied. 

 

“Right but… it’s different now. He’s been away with tutors, only hearing bits and pieces of what’s going on here. I bet Mom and Dad don’t tell him anything about us in their letters, because we’re always… you know. Screwing up their legacy.”

 

“Failing to dig their legacy out of the hole they dropped it in,” Alec countered. 

 

“Exactly.” Isabelle spun to face him. “Mom’s going to drop all of that on Max now. He’s her last hope. Dad’s not going to be around to temper the effect that has, we’re going to be the examples of doing it wrong, not just from Mom, from everyone.”

 

“I know,” Alec said. “I was her only kid for a while. I get what it’s like.”

 

“Right, but we’re adults now, and even with everything that’s happened we do still hold some status in this Institute. Pangborn told me that he thinks we’re great teachers and that he admired what I said about how the Clave treats downworlders.”

 

Alec made the lemon face again. “In the meeting yesterday he asked me if I’d ever slept with Hodge.”

 

Isabelle felt her mind go totally blank with shock for a moment, than incandescent with rage before she fought her way back to coherency. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

 

Alec told her, explaining how humiliating it had been and how their mother had gotten that horrified look on her face again and their father had seemed to check out of the conversation while Alec sputtered his way through a shocked and honest, but probably unconvincing “no, of course not.”

 

“God. I’m sorry,” Isabelle said. “But… those are all the sorts of things we need to start calling out. For all of us. And for Max. His rune ceremony is tonight. He’s not going to be a full Shadowhunter, but he’s going to start getting exposed to more and more Clave bullshit. And Mom is going to start coming down on him harder. He’s going to need us.”

 

Alec nodded. “Yeah. I… I’m not sure why you… didn’t assume we were on the same page about this.”

 

“I didn’t assume we were on different pages, Alec, I just…” Isabelle waved a hand. “I think we just really have to be operating as a team to do everything we need to do for our family. And this isn’t something that’s going away. We aren’t going to just cling to the gunwales for the next three months and come out the other side. Our lives are fundamentally different after everything that’s happened since Clary got her. Since Valentine came back. Since Dad decided to leave.” Isabelle dropped back down next to him on his bed. “I know what it’s like to have someone like you for the first time. It’s overwhelming and especially if it’s not someone that people would necessarily approve of, it can be isolating. I know it’s only been two weeks, and you’re a private person… but… you wouldn’t say anything about your date when you needed help with makeup, and I sort of get the feeling… you didn’t trust me to know.”

 

“What? No, Iz…” Alec spluttered. “I trust you. Of course I trust you. I just… Look, in your room that morning it felt like rubbing it in Lydia’s face. She and I still haven’t talked about… you know. Me leaving her at the altar for a warlock.”

 

“Okay. Right. I get that,” Isabelle answered. “But since then? I tell you about my personal life all the time. I’m not asking you for like… a play by play of everything that leads up to those hickies.” She tapped the side of his neck, where she could tell there was a layer of matte powder. Alec groaned. “But a snapshot.”

 

Alec sighed. “And this is going to help us protect Max?”

 

“Help protect each other. Keep each other sane. You’d know what I mean if you opened up to more people.” 

 

Alec considered her for a moment. “Okay. Fine. What do you want to know?”

 

* * *

 

 

It had taken two other women to get Lydia into her wedding dress. As they had moved around her— zipping and tugging and snapping and buttoning— encasing her in a dress as unescapable as the union she was about to enter, Lydia had been well aware that she wasn’t starting a fairy-tale romance with a handsome prince. She wasn’t stupid, and she hadn’t been oblivious. She’d never kidded herself that she and Alec would fall in love and be endlessly happy. 

 

She’d been prepared to have a steady, if formal, political relationship with Alec. They’d find ways to enjoy each other’s company, split their duties fairly, only have sex on special occasions, or if one of them had had too much to drink, and then they’d stop altogether after they’d had a few kids, who they would adore, and who would keep them together. 

 

She’d gotten ready for her wedding expecting a friendly, but cool relationship that would eventually end up with she and her husband sleeping in separate rooms and not asking each other where they’d been on Saturday night. Someone didn’t have to be madly in love with you to be a good husband and father. Lydia had accepted that before she’d begun to walk down the aisle. 

 

When Magnus had walked in, Lydia had let Alec go because she could tell that Alec hadn’t made the same peace with their future. And as the weeks since the wedding had passed, Lydia had been surprised to find the pieces of herself that she’d assumed died with John waking back up. She saw Alec smiling at his phone, and she wanted that feeling again. She saw Clary pining after Jace, and while she didn’t want the complications around it, she wanted that intensity of feeling back. 

 

With every day that went by, Lydia was realizing that Magnus hadn’t just saved Alec, but her too. He’d helped them both dodge bullets they hadn’t ever seen coming. 

 

But as she settled into the empty seat that separated Alec and Isabelle from Clary and Simon in the the front row at Max’s rune ceremony, and watched Maryse and Robert silently fuming at each other while Brother Zachariah set out the ceremonial objects, the thing she was most grateful to Magnus Bane for, was that he had saved her from having these people as her in-laws. 

 

“Did you talk to Max?” she asked Alec. “Is he nervous?”

 

Alec nodded. “More excited than nervous. He finally picked a rune this morning.”

 

“What did he choose?”

 

“A voyance rune.”

 

Lydia smiled. “Very traditional.”

 

Alec sighed. “Someone has to be.”

 

“You think your mother pushed him into it?”

 

“No… I just think he’s picking up on more of what’s going on here than people are giving him credit for and he doesn’t want to rock the boat.”

 

“Does he know about your parents?” Lydia asked softly. 

 

“Wait, you know?” Alec demanded.

 

“The Clave sent me his transfer paperwork to sign this morning, and I overheard some of the yelling in the conference room yesterday when went back for my pen.”

 

Alec sighed disgustedly. “They don’t want him to know until after the ceremony and the party are over. It only took them three kids to develop just that little bit of selflessness. They’re going to let him have his day.”

 

Lydia nodded and glanced back up at the dais, where Maryse was moving her glare between Simon and Robert. Sneaking a look at Simon, Lydia was pretty sure that Simon had noticed. 

 

“The vampire came to the rune ceremony?”

 

Alec shook his head and sighed. Isabelle leaned over him to answer. “Max specifically asked him to come. I guess they’ve bonded. There are no rules against Downworlders at Shadowhunter rituals. Jocelyn somehow got invited. And she brought Luke.”

 

“Did you invite Magnus?”

 

Alec huffed again. “Max hasn’t met Magnus yet. I don’t think Mom or Dad have had to talk to him since the wedding. We agreed that we didn’t want to do anything to distract from Max today.”

 

 _It is time for the first rune of Maxwell Joseph Lightwood to be given._ Brother Zachariah announced suddenly into the minds of the crowd. Everyone fell instantly silent, those who were standing sat. The witchlight overhead dimmed slightly.

 

_Maryse and Robert Lightwood, you have brought your son up so that he may bear runes and serve the Angel Raziel, and the Clave, the Angel’s representatives on Earth._

 

Next to her, Alec scoffed quietly.

 

“We have,” Maryse and Robert chorused. 

 

_Bring him here so that he may receive his first Mark._

 

Robert and Maryse nodded, walked down the narrow steps off of the dais and down the center aisle, where Max was standing in gold robes that made him look a little bit like a decorative candle. His face was pale, and determined. Robert and Maryse each moved around him, and turned, letting Max lead them back up to the dais.

 

 _What Mark have you chosen?_ Brother Zachariah asked. 

 

“The Voyance Rune,” Max answered in steady voice that could be heard across the entire crowd.

 

 _A worthy choice._ Brother Zachariah told him. _Hold out your hand, Maxwell Joseph Lightwood, and receive the Angel’s rune._

 

Max extended his right hand. This close to, Lydia could see his arm shaking slightly. Brother Zachariah took Max’s small hand into his larger, heavily scarred one,  and set the tip of his stele to Max’s hand. 

 

Max cried out. A titter of suppressed laughter went through the crowd. Lydia forced herself not to smile. There was nothing exactly wrong with making a noise of pain at the first touch of the stele, but it was the sort of thing people would tease you about for a long time. She had a cousin who had sworn, loudly, when the Silent Brother at his ceremony had started to Mark him. People still brought it up fifteen years later. 

 

Brother Zachariah swept one graceful line with his stele along the back of Max’s hand, and stopped.

 

Lydia felt Alec tense next to her. The strange, frozen moment thawed out and Brother Zachariah began to move his stele again, much more quickly now.

 

Something was wrong. The Brother’s hand was holding Max’s hand firmly and Max was half turned away, his jaw clenched tight, clearly overcoming an instinct to pull away, to run.

 

And then Lydia saw it. 

 

A flash of red  on Max’s hand. 

 

A drop of blood running over his skin, and falling to the floor.

 

Brother Zachariah squatted down and a ripple of shock went through the crowd, confirming that Lydia wasn’t the only person who had never seen a Silent Brother do that before. 

 

 _His skin is not taking the runes._ Brother Zachariah’s soundless voice intoned as he pushed back the sleeve of Max’s robe and began to run his stele over Max’s arm.

 

_I must add many more protections, or he may become Forsaken_

 

Brother Zachariah’s announcement was met with quiet, concentrated chaos. 

 

Until Max screamed. 

 

Robert and Maryse dropped to their knees behind Max, holding him tightly so he couldn’t pull away from Brother Zachariah. Everyone around Lydia leapt to their feet and charged the dais. The immediacy of Alec and Isabelle’s movement carried Lydia along with them as though it was a battle charge and she found herself up on the dais with them like they’d portalled up there instead of leapt.

 

But Simon, with his Vampire speed, had gotten there first. He dropped to his knees in front of Max and in a shockingly gentle voice said, “Hey, look at me. Don’t worry about that, look at me.” 

 

Simon held up a hand near the side of Max’s face cutting off Max’s view of what Lydia could see all too well. Max’s arm was gushing blood,  healing partially only to crack again along the rune lines like roasted chicken skin.

 

Max whipped his head away from mangled skin on his arm to face Simon, his face starkly paler than the dead boy’s. 

 

“Don’t worry about that. Talk to me. Look at me. Did you read that new comic I gave you?”

 

“Yes,” Max answered, tears shining on his face.

 

Simon smiled encouragingly. “Oh, it’s a great one isn’t it?”

 

Max’s face contorted further, but he still answered, his voice eerily steady. “Yes. It is a great one.”

 

It was all Lydia could do not to curse the Silent Brother and scream at him to move faster, to stop prolonging the little boy’s suffering. 

 

“Tell me your favorite thing about Spidey.”

 

Max’s eyes glazed over, with the rest of his face still screwed up in pain, and grit out. “Spidey says funny things. He— Ahh!” Max let out a sudden scream of pain before he went back to his dreadful monotone. “And he saves the—“

 

Alec figured it out first. He dropped to his knees behind Simon,clapped his hands over the sides of the vampire’s skull and aimed him at Max like a spotlight. 

 

“Tell him he’s going to be okay.”

 

“You’re going to be okay,” Simon repeated, clearly confused. 

 

“I’m going to be okay,” Max intoned back. 

 

“Tell him he doesn’t feel any pain.”

 

“You don’t feel any pain.”

 

Max’s little body sagged down several inches. He let out a sigh of relief that almost sounded like a kicked dog’s howl, horribly loud in the utterly silent room. Isabelle clapped her hands over her mouth, tears running down her face. She hadn’t figured it all out yet, Lydia was sure. She was shocked to see how much suffering had just left Max’s body, but she hadn’t realized yet. Maybe Alec hadn’t either. Lydia looked down at Maryse. Their wide eyed gazes met. Maryse knew. 

 

A Shadowhunter with a voyance rune wasn’t susceptible to vampire mind control. The runes weren’t working.  

 

Brother Zachariah kept going, adding more and more obscure runes. Lydia couldn’t stand to look. Max’s arm looked like it was being peeled like an apple.

 

Clary ordered Adeline to the training room to retrieve the first aid kit. The child’s blonde hair flew out behind her like a cape as she ran. 

 

Alec continued to hold Simon in place, prompting Simon with a new statement whenever Simon faltered as Brother Zachariah continued to whip his stele manically across Max’s arm. There was blood everywhere, dripping onto the floor, dripping onto Simon. A look of panic flashed across the vampire’s face when his fangs slid out, and a whimper escaped him, but he kept going. He kept feeding a glazed and wobbling Max urgent, hushed encouragement, repeating anything that Alec said to him as Robert and Maryse stood and stepped back, moving toward Isabelle as they both cried. 

 

“You don’t feel any pain, you’re going to be okay, everything is going to be okay,” Simon was saying when, finally, mercifully, Zachariah announced, 

 

_I can do no more_

 

“You can rest now,” Simon said. 

 

Max crumpled forward like the last domino, landing in Simon’s outstretched arms. Everyone on the stage finally began to move again as Simon frantically passed Max to Alec.

 

Maryse grabbed Clarence. “Two bags of B negative from the infirmary,” She ordered.  “Now.” 

 

“He’s going to his room,” Alec barked at Clarence’s retreating back. “Bring the IV here, anything else goes to his room.“

 

“Alec, he’s—”

 

“—Not waking up in the fucking infirmary!” Alec practically screamed.

 

Isabelle descended on her brother with the first aid kit, pulling on sterile gloves, bandages and gauze, and immediately wrapping up Max’s arm, carefully winding gauze around the upsticking points of skin, which almost looked burned. Behind Lydia, Jocelyn dived for Simon, who was pressing himself backward out of the tangle of Lightwoods.  The expression on his face as he looked from Max and Alec to his blood spattered arm made Lydia’s heart ache for him. Jocelyn, standing on the floor behind the dais, set her hands at Simon’s shoulders and pulled him back toward her. 

 

“Help,”  Simon whispered. The action on the dais was so focused, so quiet, that Simon’s plea was perfectly audible. Lydia stared down at him, unsure what to do, and even less sure when she saw Jocelyn’s expression of sad bewilderment. Simon was staring in horror at his arm, his fangs still out. “Help,” he whispered again. 

 

It was Adeline who somehow knew how to come to his rescue. She pulled a large handkerchief out of her back pocket and started to wipe the blood off of Simon. There was an eerie moment of quiet as everyone but Isabelle and Alec, still entirely focused on Max, stopped to watch her do it. Adeline held Simon’s hand in her own as she wiped his arm dry, then leaned over to the first aid kit, grabbed a large disinfectant wipe and started to wipe him clean.

 

Clarence ran back into the room with a bag of blood and a handful of medical equipment. Simon laid down on his back, Adeline still cleaning him. Isabelle grabbed everything from Clarence and set up an IV in a matter of moments. Clary moved around all of them to crouch down next to Simon, brushing his hair back from his forehead and whispering to him until his fangs retracted. 

 

Lydia felt utterly useless in the whirlwind of tragedy around her. She stood stock still, unable to think of anything to do other than stare at Robert and Maryse, also too overwhelmed to take in the chaos around all of them.

 

 Isabelle took off her bloody gloves, dropped them to the ground and tapped Alec’s shoulder. Alec stood with Max in his arms and Isabelle helped slide the IV bag onto one of Alec’s fingers before he marched toward the dormitories. Isabelle hopped off the dais, grabbed Simon’s face as she passed and kissed his forehead, whispering, “Thank you, thank you,” before running off after Alec. 

 

Finally, Simon sat up. Adeline gave him a grim smile, he patted her blonde hair dazedly, and then turned to Jocelyn. 

 

She held her arms out to him, and he fell into them, crying.

 

Maryse watched for a few moments before she ran after her children. After another pause, Robert ran behind her. 

 

Lydia swallowed, then looked at Clarence, Adeline, and the Silent Brother, standing so still it was almost as though he hadn’t seen anything that had just happened. Or maybe in his long life he’d seen it all before.  

 

“Mops. I think,” Lydia finally said. “Let’s go find some mops.”

 

 


	11. S.N.A.F.U.

“What the hell just happened?” Clary demanded, joining Luke and her mother in Simon’s dorm. 

 

The two of them exchanged a look that she recognized and now finally understood. It wasn't just a parent look, it was the look they gave her when she was asking something they weren't sure she was ready to hear the truth about, and after what she had just seen, it utterly infuriated her. 

 

“What the FUCK just happened!” She repeated, much louder. They both gave her an identical disapproving look. Clary ignored it. 

 

With a sigh, her mother finally looked up at her. “It's called ’encanto’. It's vampire mind control.”

 

“I know about that. What happened to Max!”

 

She could hear the shower running. Good. She wasn’t sure she could face Simon still covered in blood. He’d been so freaked out. She just wanted to see him come out of that shower and be okay. 

 

Her mother’s jaw worked. “I have no idea. There's…there is no Shadowhunter lore about Shadowhunters who can't bear runes. It's supposed to be impossible.”

 

“So… what? Are you saying Max isn't a Shadowhunter? He must be! I mean… I think Maryse would know.”

 

“There are downworlder legends,” Luke and her mother said together. They paused and looked at each other grimly. 

 

Her mother scoffed, her features forming into a surprisingly bitter expression. “Go ahead.” She gestured to Luke.

 

“I’ve heard a couple werewolf legends, _old_ werewolf legends, with unruned Shadowhunters in them,” Luke said. “They're usually crippled, living like hermits in the woods. They offer the werewolf hero some kind of weapon or spell on their quest.”

 

Jocelyn’s expression darkened further. “Dot told me a few warlock legends with unruned Shadowhunters in them. In warlock stories they are usually evil. They steal something from a warlock, like spell books or weapons, and try to bring them back to the Clave. As a bargaining chip.”

 

“Okay, I didn't ask for downworld story corner,” Clary hissed, wondering why they were both being so unhelpful and cryptic. “Max is a Shadowhunter. The rune ceremony is for Shadowhunters. Runes are for Shadowhunters. So _Shadowhunters_ must have an explanation for what just happened in there.”

 

Her mother shook her head. “Clary, I tried to tell you you didn't understand this world. Shadowhunters don't explain differences. They eliminate, or suppress them. Look at poor Alec Lightwood. He’s not the first gay Shadowhunter, he’s probably the thousandth. No one knows what to do or say around him because he's the first one who didn't get hidden away. All the legends about unruned Shadowhunters are downworld legends about hermits because The Clave must have banished or killed anyone who couldn’t bear runes.”

 

“If the Clave thinks they are going to eliminate Max Lightwood, those mother fuckers are going to have to come through all of us,” Clary declared hotly.

 

“No one is going to kill Max,” Luke asserted. “And enough with the dirty mouth, Clary.  And the reflexive gloom, Jocelyn. We need to stay focused and work with what we know. People would notice if a lot of ten year olds were disappearing from a small closed society with any regularity. There would be more than ancient downworld legends if it had happened recently. Shadowhunter children whose skin rejects runes must be vanishingly rare. And… that was rough in there. Without Simon…” Luke shook his head. “We can assume that medicine and magic have both come a long ways since the last time this happened.”

 

“So what do we do?” Clary asked. “What is the Clave going to do? Turn a little boy out onto the streets? What? Because he’s defective?”

 

“I don't know what they’ll do,” her mother said, much more softly than before. “The usual Shadowhunter customs are kind of… in flux at this Institute. And… we’re been out of the culture for so long, I really don’t know how rigid things still are compared to how they used to be. And Clary… I hate to say this to you, but you need to understand— whatever happens next will depend on whether or not Max even survives. He… there's no way of knowing what sort of physical toll that took on him. We all just have to hope for the best right now.”

 

Clary was about to start swearing again when the bathroom door opened. Simon walked out in a fresh set of clothes, rushed to her with only normal speed, and hugged her. 

 

Warm from the hot water, he almost felt alive. 

 

* * *

 

 

“What the hell just happened?” Isabelle demanded. Her tears had smeared her make up and made the tip of her nose red. “I didn't even know that could happen. No one ever told me before my rune ceremony that that was possible. What if-”

 

“Isabelle, hush,” Maryse told her, as gently as she could manage. “No one has any answers and we need to let Brother Zachariah work.” 

 

Max’s room was small and with Alec, Isabelle, herself, Robert, and Brother Zachariah all standing around Max’s bed, it was exceedingly cramped. Brother Zachariah was folded into a chair at Max’s bedside. Alec and Isabelle were crouched at either side of him.  Robert was sitting in the windowsill, his face in his hands. Maryse was leaning back against the door out to the hal.

 

She felt… unwelcome in her children's grief. Neither had gone to her as Max had started to bleed. Alec, her first baby, hadn't even looked at her. Alec and Isabelle had bandaged Max, carried him to his room. 

 

Shut the door behind them. 

 

She remembered how happy they had both been when she’d told them that they would have another sibling, so soon after Jace had come to live with them.  She remembered the way they would both smile, at Max and at her, when she passed little Max into their arms.

 

They were adults now. And they’d shut Max’s door behind them. 

 

She knew she was hard on them. She had to be. They were both capable warriors, whatever else they might be, and that was due in large part to her. She had raised children in a world where you had to make sure those children survived. Survived intense training, and demon attacks, and unforgiving Laws and intricate Clave politics. Maryse understood that would make it hard for her to have the sort of relationship with them that mundane mothers had with their children.

 

But she loved her children. She did all the things she did so that they would be successful and happy and even with everything that had happened since Alec’s wedding, she had assumed they loved her as much as she loved them. 

 

But she’d opened her youngest child's door to find the other two with their backs to her. With Max laying so, so still.

 

Brother Zachariah touched the bandage wrapped around Max’s arm with his long, spindly fingers. 

 

 _The bleeding is slowing_. Brother Zachariah said.

 

“That's good,right?” Isabelle asked, her voice heavy and stuffed up, but more focused now that she was seeking some sort of concrete action. Maryse had been shocked to see the speed and confidence with which Isabelle had bandaged her brother and set up an IV. Max’s slack little face was already gaining some of its color back.

 

 _There is nothing left to do now,_ Brother Zachariah said _. In a few minutes, we will check the wound. If it is healing, we will wait and check again. If it is not, he must be brought to the City of Bones._

 

Isabelle sobbed again, laying her head down onto Max’s bed.

 

“No,” Alec said. His voice was low and steady. 

 

“Alec,” Robert snapped at him. “If the Silent Brothers-”

 

“If the Silent Brothers want to terrorize him in a hole in the ground they can see which of them can get through the every arrow I can shoot,” Alec said, still in the same calm voice.

 

Robert threw himself furiously out of the window. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood, don't you dare threaten the-” 

 

Alec pulled himself up to his full height. Maryse realized she’d never noticed just how much taller than Robert he really was. 

 

“Shut up,” Alec told him. “You’re a cheating, lying traitor who should have been locked away decades ago.” He turned from Robert, still gaping, to Brother Zachariah. “There's no magic in the City of Bones but the magic entrances to everywhere. Tell the lazy bastards to open one up on the front lawn and come to us.”

 

Brother Zachariah also lifted himself to his full height, a few heads higher than Alec, who looked up at him, utterly unimpressed.

 

_I shall send a message._

 

Maryse opened the door for the Silent Brother, and he glided through it.

 

Alec turned back to Robert. “Make yourself useful. Go get some pain meds from the infirmary.”

 

Robert obeyed.

 

Maryse shut the door behind him.

 

“We shouldn’t give him any pain killers until we check the wound and make sure that it's not Simon’s encanto keeping him under,” Isabelle said with a snuffle.

 

“If…” Maryse started, faltering a little when both of her children spun to look at her,  “If it is encanto keeping him under, we should ask the vampire,” she saw the way Isabelle's eyes went hard and sharp, “Simon, to make him rest again. Drugs and Magic can be a tricky combination at the best of times. We… we don't know enough about what happened to risk it.”

 

Isabelle looked to Alec, who nodded. The three of them turned back to Max, watching him sleep until Brother Zachariah re-entered the room. The door hit Maryse in the arm as it opened. She followed him into the room, and tucked herself into the window sill Robert had vacated. 

 

Alec and Isabelle moved aside as Brother Zachariah sat back down. They went toward the door, whispering together. 

 

Maryse watched Brother Zachariah carefully unwrap Max’s arm. The first few layers came away white. The next few stained. The last few wet.

 

The Silent Brother pulled the portable which Isabelle had carried in from the infirmary to himself. It was a small pedestal with a hose and a water tank. Almost like a baptismal font with a shower head attatchment. They all watched him as he carefully washed Max’s limp arm, no sound in the room but the tinkle of water hitting the silver bowl.

 

_The wounds are closing. The voyance rune is fading._

 

“What does that mean?” Alec asked. 

 

 _I do not know_ , Brother Zachariah said. _And do not wish to give you false hope. But, were he a human becoming Forsaken, the wound would have begun to fester by now. He is showing every sign of healing as a Shadowhunter would heal. Every sign but one. The rune is fading._

 

“Will the other Silent Brothers come?” Maryse asked. A voyance rune was permanent. She’d never heard of one fading. But healing was better than rotting. There was a glimmer of hope still. 

 

Brother Zachariah turned his grotesque face to her.  _They will come if the child does not continue to heal._ He stood, and gazed at Max for a moment before leaving again. 

 

Isabelle went back to Max, laying the back of her hand to his head and brushing his hair back from his face. “I’ll go talk to Simon.”

 

When the door closed behind her daughter, Maryse found herself alone in a room with Alec for the first time since the night she and Robert had come home from that huge fight in Idris. 

 

He’d asked her what was wrong, then. Her sweet boy.  She’d told him it was nothing, and he’d… dived into a whole speech about what it was to be a Lightwood and volunteered to do what it took to defend the family name, not knowing yet what she was going to ask him to do.

 

When’d he’d come up to talk to her after the wedding, she’d told him she didn’t even recognize him anymore. And she’d been entirely sincere. He’d been rash, he’d been ridiculous, he’d been acting so crazy that she had genuinely thought he was enchanted for at least a week. She hadn’t recognized that person at all. Lacking every bit of sense and duty that she’d thought her son had. 

 

But she recognized this person. The boy bent over Max’s bed, doing everything he could to make sure his sibling was safe and taken care of, and wouldn’t wake up somewhere terrifying surrounded by monsters. Who’d barked out orders to a Silent Brother and his father and had them obeyed. 

 

She didn’t know how to reconcile those two people. The boy she’d raised the man he’d somehow become. The dutiful soldier who did his paperwork and defended his brother and the… twenty-something who had chosen a downworlder— a male downworlder whom she despised—to… start some kind of intimacy with.

 

But trying to force those two pieces of Alec together wasn’t as hard as realizing that she was kneeling next to him and felt completely alone. 

 

She’d hurt him. She knew that. But he’d hurt her too. Hurt all of them and refused to acknowledge it. But she was his mother, and it was so easy to to forget how young he was. 

 

Slowly, she reached out, and smoothed the hair at the back of his head. He closed his eyes for a moment, and she did it again as she searched for some words of reassurance that weren’t a lie. She wanted, so badly, to tell him that she was sure the Silent Brothers would know what to do, or that this was probably just a minor reaction that Max might even grow out of in years to come. 

 

But she wasn’t going to lie to Alec. Not when he’d clearly given up on lying to her. 

 

She stroked his hair again. He moved away from her, shifting his body out of her reach before he stood up. 

 

“I need to make a call,” he said.

 

“Who are you going to call?” She asked.

 

The answer occurred to her halfway through the question, and she could tell from Alec’s face that he’d seen the realization dawn on her. He didn’t reply, just shrugged and walked out the door, leaving her alone with the one child who didn’t hate her yet.

 

* * *

 

 

Alec jammed his hand into his pocket, holding his phone as he walked. He just needed to get somewhere private. As one of the leaders of this Institute, given what had just happened, it was entirely reasonable for him to seek assistance and experience from the High Warlock of Brooklyn, who may very well have some arcane knowledge to bring into this disaster. 

 

But as a stupid, scared kid who had no fucking idea what had just happened to his little brother, and who had been storing up sanity and solace in Magnus’s apartment in twilight-to-sunrise long blocks for the last two weeks, he needed to talk to his boyfriend, who he had still never actually called his boyfriend. And he didn’t want anyone who thought he was calling as part of the professional first reason, to hear what he sounded like when he was actually calling for the second reason. 

 

He should have talked to his mother. She’d been trying. She’d reached out. He could have turned to her and told her how scared he was for Max, and how terrifying it was not to know what any of this meant. Maybe… maybe they could have started putting all the ugliness that had happened behind them… but he hadn’t done that. He’d told her he would rather talk to Magnus than to her. 

 

And it was true. The things she had been saying to him since the wedding still hurt. Alec couldn’t stop thinking about what Izzy had said to him about the way he got defensive of his mother. And he did. He just had, snapping at his father like that. Part of that had been his own anger over the fact that his father was… faking understanding and care to his face while he was telling Max that Alec was a good enough Shadowhunter to have his little liaison and then go back in the closet and do them all proud… but mostly he was angry at his father for being so much less than the man Alec had imagined him to be and still having the gall to demand that Alec be twice the man he was.

 

Alec finally made it back to his bedroom, ducked inside, locked the door, and dialed.

 

* * *

 

“I hate this,” Simon huffed as Isabelle lead him through the labyrinth of dormitories by the hand. “I mean it. I hate it.”

 

“It's just a biological thing, Simon. An evolutionary advancement,” Isabelle said, in as soothing a tone as she could manage. “Humans have opposable thumbs, vampires have encanto. It's okay.”

 

Simon growled, a more animal sound than Isabelle had expected, and one that seemed to shock Simon too.

 

“Mind-control is not okay.”

 

“Simon—”

 

“It's for villains. Megalomaniacs. Rapists. Everyone with mind control goes around stealing state secrets and making people dress in degrading outfits—”

 

“Simon!” Isabelle snapped, finally, losing her temper with him. “You’re not a comic book character. You’re a real person. And _you_ used it to save a child from a lot of pain and fear and suffering.” 

 

Simon glared back at her for a moments, until she saw tears starting in his eyes again. “No. You were right before. I’m a vampire and it's an advancement. For hunting. Hunting people.” He let out an ugly little laugh. “The most dangerous game. That's why vampires are so good looking. To lure people in until they can work the mojo on them, and then kill them.”

 

“Yeah. That's what it's for,” Isabelle said. “But vampires aren't lions. You can choose what to do with it. You don't bite just because your fangs cone out.”

 

“I almost did,” Simon said quietly. “Alec felt me try to pull forward. I’m sure he did.”

 

Isabelle didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t make Simon not be a vampire. She had already done her best to talk Clary out of bringing him back. And, the truth— that she didn’t actually know much about fledgeling vampires because typically clans kept pretty close tabs on them to keep them from going rogue and being killed by Shadowhunters— didn’t seem like the right thing to say. 

 

So she decided to lose her temper. 

 

“Simon! You need to find a better time to ride the pity train, okay? My brother is… in bad shape, okay? I know you need to talk to someone about this, and I swear, I will listen to you… after Max is awake. After we know he’s going to be okay.”

 

Simon slumped in front of her, wiped the back of his hand over his eyes, let her take his hand again, and followed her down the hall.

 

* * *

 

The floor was clean. The room smelled like bleach. Adeline had been sent to bed. They’d thrown the mop heads away. 

 

Dinner had still been served. No one had cut the cake. 

 

Lydia and Pangborn had each dished themselves up a plate and then retreated to Lydia’s office. She dropped into her desk chair, Clarence sat across from her, and they’d both eaten their entree before either spoke. 

 

“Clarence?” Lydia finally said. 

 

“Miss Branwell?” 

 

“Don’t report this to Clave. At least not yet. Wait for the boy to wake up. Give them all a chance to grieve, and to plan for what might come next. A couple days. That’s all I’m—“

 

“I’m not going to report to the Clave about this at all,” Pangborn said quietly.

 

Lydia felt a swoop in her stomach, like when you miss a stair. “You aren’t?”

 

“I wasn’t sent here to monitor every aspect of the Lightwood’s private lives. When they know more about what’s happened to Max and they’ve all had time to recover themselves, they can choose an appropriate course of action. They could bring in Clave experts in Angelic magic and disease study. They could chose to work exclusively with the Silent Brothers. It is, of course, within their rights to work with the nearest warlock.”

 

Lydia gave him a warning expression.  “The Clave sent _me_ here to monitor the Lightwoods and we both know it.”

 

“The Clave is not a big, homogenous, group-thinking mass and we both know it,” Pangborn countered. “There were always cracks and fractions, and Valentine’s return is bringing power to some of the voices that were previously overshadowed.”

 

Lydia  looked from Pangborn down to her plate. She stabbed a piece of broccoli and brought it to her mouth, looking at Pangborn expectantly while she chewed.

 

He rolled his eyes at her. “Maryse Lightwood’s brother was banished by the Clave you know.”

 

Lydia nearly choked on her broccoli.

 

“Ah,” Pangborn said. “So you didn’t know. He fell in love with a mundane and was stripped of his runes and sent out into the world with her. He’s still a Shadowhunter. If he managed to come across a stele on say… Craigslist. Or through some warlock black market, he could bear runes again. Shadow hunter blood always presents. His children are Shadowhunters. They could have been taught our ways. They could have been part of our world. But those in power at the time wouldn’t allow it.” Pangborn sipped his wine. “They couldn’t have one perfect Shadowhunter, so they threw away an entire line of descendants. Isabelle Lightwood is brilliant and talented, and the Inquisitor decided the most important thing about her is that she’s overfond of Seelies. As if there weren’t two fully capable half-Seelie warriors in Los Angeles as we speak. Alec Lightwood is dutiful and talented and, until the complications with the Fairchild girl happened, he was on track to heading his own Institute before the age of twenty-five, but a turn of the tide in Idris could easily put him right in line for the same banishment as the uncle he never know faced.”

 

Lydia eyed Pangborn’s gleaming eyes carefully. “He’ll never have children.”

 

Pangborn shrugged. “Not if makes a permanent companion of Magnus Bane, that I’ll grant you. But… the Clave could accept him taking up with a nice Shadowhunter boy.  In time. And we’ve got no shortage of orphans. And even if it didn’t come to that— the people here, at the New York Institute have the strongest bonds with the downworld and the mundane world that I’ve ever seen. _Both of which_ are threatened by Valentine, _both of which_ could be valuable allies— if the Clave try begins to value defeating demons over lording their power over the downworld, unable to realize that the power of aristocracy is gone. It’s time for partnership with the downworld.”

 

“Where are you going with this?” Lydia demanded. Tonight, of all nights, she didn’t need a speech. 

 

“I’m not here to report on the Lightwoods. I’m here to depose them. I’m here to make you the permanent head of this Institute.”

 

* * *

 

Robert had gone to get the pain meds, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to go back into Max’s room. 

 

He’d seen it in Alec’s eyes when Alec had barked those orders at him. His son had already written him off. As far as his family was concerned, Robert might as well be in Idris right now, utterly unaware that any of this had happened. 

 

He took a chair from the control room, carried it back through the corridors and set it in a little nook near Max’s door. He’d be able to hear if anyone came or went, but anyone who did could easily walk past him without having to acknowledge they’d seen him.

 

After a few still, silent moments, he heard the door open, and heard a heavy tread that had to be Alec walking down the other hallway. He considered getting up, following Alec, apologizing, but as soon as he stood, he realized how pointless it would be. Alec was, in so many ways neither of them realized, just like his mother. It was pointless to talk to either of them when they were angry with you. You had to wait for them to either calm down, or be much more angry at someone else.

 

By the Angel, he hoped Max woke up soon. 

 

He heard Max’s door open again, but didn’t hear it shut. Instead, he heard the slow, ponderous creak of someone very, very carefully closing the door, but leaving it open a crack. And then he heard a sound he wished he didn’t know nearly as well as he did. 

 

The half-hiccup noise Maryse made when she was trying not to cry. 

 

He stood up and walked around the corner. 

 

There she was, still in her fancy dress, braced against her knees and the wall. Just like she’d been after Alec’s wedding had been interrupted. But this time he went to her. He walked over to her and helped her up, and let her fall against him, pressing her face down into his shoulder, and letting the sobs shake her body for a few minutes until finally, she calmed down. 

 

“I’ll stay,” he whispered. “I’ll call the office and I’ll tell them what happened.”

 

“Robert,” Maryse said. “No. No. Go to Idris. Take the job.”

 

“Maryse, after what just happened—”

 

She pushed herself away from him and looked him in the eye for the first time in a very long time. “Robert, go. You know what’ll happen if you don’t. We’ll try again for a few weeks and wind up hating each other even more. Maybe even end up having another baby and hating each other a little more every day.”

 

Robert sighed. “That is what happened last time.” 

 

They leaned against the wall. 

 

“Do you really hate me?” he asked, a strange chuckle bubbling out of his throat. 

 

“It comes and goes,” Maryse answered. “I hate you less now that you aren’t in my quarters anymore. The first night without your snoring was the best sleep I’ve had in years.”

 

Robert laughed again. Maryse echoed, just a little. 

 

“Well. I resent the hell out of you,” Robert said. 

 

“I know,” Maryse replied. 

 

“I’ll come back,” Robert promised. “I’ll come back to the visit the children.”

 

Maryse reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it quickly, dropping it as they heard footsteps coming down the hall. 

 

Isabelle, with the vampire following behind her. She moved past them without even pausing, opened the door and moved inside. 

 

A moment later there was a scream. 

 

Robert and Maryse launched themselves into the dark room to find Isabelle standing over an empty bed, and the vampire gazing out an open window. 

 

“He’s gone!” Isabelle yelled. “Max is gone.”


	12. Tactical Retreat 3

Magnus took the proffered bag of payment, opened the fastening and pulled a couple of rubies out of the bag, holding them up to the light.

 

“Don't you know it's rude to count money in front of someone?” his client, a recently scorned Nixie with a very expensive vengeful side, told him.

 

Magnus squinted at the ruby. “I assure you I would be more than rude if I returned home and found that these were just enchanted glass.”

 

“Who would be foolish enough to cheat the High Warlock of Brooklyn?” 

 

Magnus dropped the rubies back into the bag, satisfied with their authenticity. “Evidently not you.”

 

The Nixie grinned, his sharp blue teeth shining in the candlelight. “I place a high value on my relationships.”

 

“I gathered that.”

 

“Speaking of relationships, do you know there's a rumor going around the downworld that you’re attempting to bed a Shadowhunter?”

 

Magnus slipped the bag of jewels into his pocket and made a note to overcharge this particular client in the future. “You’re certainly old enough to know that any rumors going around the downworld about something as banal as sex are jealousy at best and calumnies at worst.”

 

“Which do you think this is?”

 

“My dear, when it's about me it's always both,” Magnus flashed him a short-lived smirk. “Your potion will be ready tomorrow afternoon. Your nosyness will be unwelcome.”

 

“Warlock Bane,” the Nixie said with a bow as Magnus turned and walked out of the cold, damp room.

 

Every time he left a Nixie lair he had a craving for chicken masala. Something about the damp and the earthy smell triggered some old memory in him. Maybe he could pick up some take out. Possibly with some stuffed naan. He slipped his hand back into his pocket. It probably wasn't late enough to call Alec. As well as he could remember, first rune ceremonies went well into the night. Even if Alec wasn't busy, he’d probably be too full and tired to spend the night. 

 

Still. No harm in checking. 

 

Magnus pulled his phone out his pocket and tapped it to check the time. 

 

He had two missed calls and two texts from Alec.

 

“Shit!” He hissed. 

 

The first text was “Max is missing. Rune Ceremony went wrong. Call me.” The second was just “Magnus please call me.”

 

He’d accidentally put his phone on silent again. Shit. All the effort he put into keeping up with modern times, and his phone still befuddled him. Nothing in his long life had changed as quickly as his damn phone.

 

Magnus tapped the infernal thing’s screen until it called Alec. 

 

“Magnus,” Alec answered on the first ring, his voice shaky. “Magnus I need your help-”

 

“Yes, anything.”

 

“I need you to track Max. I can fill you in later, but he’s missing. He was alone in his room for ten minutes, tops, and then his window was open and he was gone. Find him, Magnus, please? He’s hurt. He's really hurt.”

 

Alec sounded absolutely torn apart under a thin veneer of forced calm. Almost like he had when he’d told Magnus he was getting married.

 

“Okay,” Magnus replied. “Yes. I… the picture you left at my apartment. I’ll portal home and call you when I’ve got a fix on him.”

 

“Thank you,”Alec said, his voice sad and warm and full. He hung up before Magnus could reply.

 

Magnus ducked into an alley, made a portal to his living room and stepped through, snatching the rough sketch of Alec reading a report in an arm chair off of his kitchen island before the portal had even closed up behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

“The Institute is on lockdown.”

 

Lydia’s steady voice washed over Maryse. She felt like she was stuck in a fog. The rest of the Institute’s inhabitants were whispering and exchanging looks, but it was just…noise. The one thing she felt aware of was Alec and Isabelle standing on either side of her. Isabelle was frozen in place, limbs tight to her body, but shaking with fear and anger. 

 

“Max Lightwood disappeared out of his room about fifteen minutes ago. He was left unattended for approximately ten minutes. We believe he was taken through his bedroom window. If anyone saw anything, heard anything, come to my office and make a report. Two Downworld allies of the Institute are looking for clues in the yard. We expect them to make their report soon. The lockdown will be reevaluated based on their intel. So, everyone sit tight.”

 

On the other side of Maryse, Alec was fidgeting. He kept rubbing his thumb into the palm of his other hand, periodically stopping to check his phone. 

 

Lydia was delivering news to _her_ Institute because Maryse was in too much of a haze to think, let alone speak. Downworlders were looking for her son. The vampire boy and Luke were sniffing through the yard, trying to track Max by the smell of his blood.

 

And she was just standing here, spending everything she had left to just keep standing. 

 

There was a buzz next to her. Alec jumped, plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. 

 

“Hey,” he answered. 

 

Maryse could tell by his voice that it was Magnus. He had a…tone. She’d noticed it before, when Alec had left him those voicemails. He talked to Magnus like he talked to Isabelle and Jace. 

 

And it was different than the way he talked to anyone else, including her.

 

“What do you mean he's on the subway?”

 

Isabelle whipped around, “What?”

 

“Wait, he's awake?….because he lost nearly two quarts of blood, Magnus….okay. Is he… where is he? What train?…right. Right…okay. Can you… yeah, okay.  Just a second.” Alec set the phone to his chest.

 

“He's on the subway?” Isabelle demanded before Alec could say anything. “So what? He suddenly woke up, jumped out the window and ran for the nearest subway station?”

 

“No. He lost too much blood,” Maryse said.

 

“But we transfused him,” Alec said. “And he's a Shadowhunter. He could have healed at least enough to replenish the blood loss. Magnus tracked him to the train, but he can't tell where he is unless he gets off.”

 

“If he ran, he had less than ten minutes alone to do it,” Maryse offered. She felt kind of sick after she said it. It just sounded like she was trying to weasel out of responsibility for losing Max.

 

“He's smart,” Clary cut in. Maryse had forgotten about her entirely. “I think he could have.”

 

“But why?” Isabelle asked. 

 

“Because he must be more afraid of what's in here than what's out there,” Alec said darkly. “Izzy, call in Simon and Luke. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

 

He brought the phone back to his ear, and walked away. 

 

* * *

 

A Shadowhunter child rejecting runes, Magnus marveled as Alec told him what had happened at Max’s rune ceremony.

 

There were rumors that it was possible, of course.  Magnus could remember a few spots in history where stories had run through the downworld, but none where any evidence had ever surfaced proving that a Shadowhunter child really hadn’t been able to take runes. 

 

He didn’t mention to Alec that he believed that to be because the children had almost certainly died. Either because they’d become Forsaken or simply because the medicine of the time hadn’t been able to save them from the shock or infection caused by the wounds they sustained during the ceremony gone wrong. By the sound of it, Max’s saving grace had been Simon’s unwitting encanto freeing him from the overwhelming pain being inflicted on him. 

 

“You’re sure you can’t see more than the train?” Alec asked. 

 

“I’ll check again,” Magnus told him, in as soothing a voice as he could manage. He grabbed the drawing again and concentrated. He just saw an increasingly pale Max Lightwood, clinging to a pole on a grungy subway car and told Alec as much. 

 

“I hate that I can’t figure out what he’s trying to do,” Alec said quietly. “He’s my brother. I should be able to figure this out. Why don’t I know where he’s going?”

 

“Shhhh,” Magnus said. “He probably has no idea where he’s going either. He’s young, hurt, and upset. As soon as he gets off the train, we’ll find him. I’ve been in New York for almost a hundred years. I know every inch of this city… above ground, anyway.”

 

“Right” Alec said. “Right. Okay. I should… I need to check in with Izzy, and then she and Lydia and I should probably just… pick different directions and fan out.”

 

“I’ll call you as soon as I have a location,” Magnus said. 

 

“Actually,” Alec replied. “Can you portal there? As soon as you see him can you catch up to him?”

 

Magnus paused. “A warlock suddenly appearing isn’t just going to scare him more? He’s never met me.”

 

“He knows who you are though. And he’s… Max is better than we were growing up. I don’t think he’s going to… I don’t think you’re going to just be some warlock. He knows… he knows who you are to me.”

 

“Okay,” Magnus said. “I’ll go as soon as I can find him.”

 

“Thank you,” Alec whispered. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 _I’m not going to barf,_ Max thought to himself over and over again. _I’m not going to barf. I’m not going to barf._

 

He’d never been on the subway before. The lights whooshing by in the dark, the smell, it was all too much. And on top of everything his arm hurt, so _so_ much and the terror that had momentarily left him as he ducked through the train doors just before they’d shut was coming back, stronger than before. 

 

He wasn’t a Shadowhunter. Ever since he’d come back to New York, everyone had been saying it to him: Shadowhunters wore runes. They fought demons, and they followed the Law, and they did things that Shadowhunters had always done, _because_ they’d always been done.  

 

But they wore runes. Everyone said that. And they said it every time they started listing all the other things that Shadowhunters did. 

 

If Max couldn’t wear runes, he must not be a Shadowhunter. 

 

That was the first thing he’d thought after he’d finally thrown the encanto off. The second thing was that if he wasn’t a Shadowhunter, he couldn’t face everyone who had spent his entire life telling he had to be. So he’d unhooked the IV, pulled the ceremonial robes off, grabbed his evac bag out from under his bed, made his sheets into a rope, and made a run for it. 

 

He’d realized what he must really be by the time he’d made it into a subway station. The only thing he could be. 

 

He was a changeling. The real Max Lightwood was probably in the Seelie Court somewhere. He was just a decoy. A placeholder. He wrapped his arms tighter around his back pack. 

 

He could make this right. He’d find a downworld hotspot, someone would tell him where the Seelie court was, and then he could switch himself back. His family could have the Shadowhunter boy they were supposed to. And the Seelies had old magic. They could stop him from becoming a Forsaken and he could just be a Seelie. He…maybe he could join the Wild Hunt or something. He’d seen them crossing the moon once in Barcelona, when the older boys had let him sneak up to the roof with them. They’d been beautiful against the full moon. Being in the Wild Hunt wouldn’t be so bad. 

 

There were tons of downworld clubs and bars downtown. Jace and Isabelle talked about it all the time. He’d sit somewhere, watching people go buy, and then he’d just follow the first downworlder he  saw until they went into one. He was certain to run into a Seelie if he stayed out late enough..

 

But he wasn’t going to make it downtown if he threw up on the subway. People were already looking at him strangely. He was the youngest person in the subway car and the bandage on his arm was poking out of his sleeve. If he threw up, someone was going to try to help him, and then he’d have to run away from them too, and he was starting to worry he wouldn’t be strong enough. 

 

So when the train started to slow this time, Max carefully slipped his arms through the straps on his backpack and made his way to the door. 

 

The platform was crowded and dank, and he found himself being buffeted along by adults who didn’t see him before they bumped into him. Someone dressed in all black clothes bumped into his arm, hard, and his roiling stomach almost got the best of him. He planted his feet and gasped for breath, tucking his arm tight to the front of his body and hunching over to protect it. 

 

He just had to get up onto the street, into fresher air. Then he’d be fine. 

 

He was not going to barf. 

 

By the Angel, his arm hurt. And now that he was moving around he was realizing how tired he really was. 

 

Fresh air. Fresh air would fix all of that. 

 

Max fixed his eyes on the stairway up to the street and lurched toward it, unzipping his sweatshirt as he finally moved into the cool air above ground. It helped. He had no idea where he was, but that didn’t matter. He just needed to find a downworlder. He glanced to the left, then to the right, and headed in the darker direction. 

 

The lights and signs in his peripheral version were moving wrong as he walked. They were wavering from dark to light. His throat tightened. His arm screamed. The street in front of him started to spin. His mouth felt hot and filled instantly with spit. 

 

He was _absolutely_ going to barf. 

 

At least this realization came to him as he was passing an alley. Max ran down it, not wanting anyone to see him. He passed a couple of puddles and old boxes before finally falling to his knees and throwing up. 

 

He gasped for breath and did it again, and then again until he finally felt empty. He stayed braced on the ground, with his hands against the cold concrete, shaking and crying. His eyes always watered when he threw up, but that’s not what this was, and Max knew it. He crawled over to the pile of boxes, leaned back against the wall, set his face to his knees and cried. 

 

His father was moving away. His parents hated each other, and having him had made them hate each other more, and he wasn’t even their real son. He wasn’t a Shadowhunter, he was  changeling, and he had no idea where he was, or where he was going and his arm hurt more than anything had ever hurt him before and his mouth tasted awful, and he was probably already turning into a Forsaken. If there was ever a time where he was allowed to let his emotions take over, it was now. 

 

Max cried until, somehow, he felt a little bit better, but he still didn’t get up. He was exhausted. He knew he had to get up. He still had to find a Seelie. But even as the alley grew colder, and a gross smell started to waft toward him, getting up just seemed too hard. Too much to ask.  

 

A chill breeze bit at him, and he zipped his sweatshirt back up. It blew again, carrying the smell with it. Max’s entire body went even colder as he realized what the smell was. 

 

Brimstone. 

 

Demons. 

 

There was a seraph dagger in his backpack. If he was quiet, he might be able to get it without the demon realizing.

 

And then what? 

 

The dagger wouldn’t light for him. Not if he wasn’t a Shadowhunter. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stab a demon with his arm like it was. 

 

The smell was getting stronger, and he could hear grating breath now. He had to decide now. Fight or run?

 

Run. 

 

He took a deep breath, lifted his head from his knees, and found himself looking into the gleaming red eyes of a Brynak Demon. 

 

He shot to his feet, but it was too late. The demon threw out one of its many tentacle and wrapped it around Max’s throat. He grabbed at  it, trying to dig his fingers into it, get close enough to kick, anything, but even as he did, he knew he couldn’t win. Max kept struggling. Kept kicking. 

 

At least he could die like a Shadowhunter. 

 

His sneaker connected with the Brynak’s soft underbelly, and it tightened its tentacle around Max’s throat. Everything was spinning again, everything hurt again, his eyes were watering again.

 

And suddenly there was a flash of blue light, and he could breath. 

 

He fell to the concrete and just lay there, too exhausted and soul-sick to get up. He didn’t even care what the blue light had been. He didn’t care if there were more demons on their way. He was so tired, and nothing mattered anymore. 

 

“Max?” a voice he didn’t recognize called out. “Uh? Max Lightwood? Are you back here?”

 

Max heard foot steps approaching, but couldn’t find his voice to call back. 

 

 _Besides_ , he though as he closed his eyes. _I’m not Max Lightwood anyway._

 

**

 


	13. Go to Ground

The child was lying on the concrete like he’d fallen asleep there. Demon slime glinted at his neck and on the shoulders of his sweatshirt. His arms wrapped tight to his chest. Magnus felt his heart leap into his throat. The back pack Max was wearing pushed him forward a little bit, just enough to make the position seem too uncomfortable to be asleep in.

 

Magnus dropped down next to Max and shook him gently. “Come on, come on, say something. Don't be dead, child, come on.”

 

“I’m not dead,” A toneless and defeated, but unmistakably alive, voice answered. 

 

With a huff of relief, Magnus took hold of Max’s shoulderes and leaned his unresisting body against the alley wall.

 

Max watched him with disinterest for a few moments, then closed his eyes again.

 

Magnus gently shook him again. “Hey, hey, you can't go to sleep yet. Did you hit your head?”

 

“No.”

 

“Okay, I still need you to open your eyes.” 

 

Max did so with a chillingly vacant obedience.

 

“Can I touch your neck? We need to make sure you it didn't break the skin and clean this ooze off you.”

 

“Okay,”

 

“I’m going to use magic,” Magnus warned gently as he brought some into his palm. The barest glimmer of interest moved in Max’s eyes as Magnus brought the ball of green light to the child's throat.

 

“Do you know who I am?” Magnus asked as he sent he magic over Max, letting it check for broken skin, poison or any sign of complications from the injuries he’d sustained earlier.

 

“No.”

 

“I’m Magnus Bane. I’m the High Warlock of Brooklyn.”

 

Magnus was relieved to see the child finally react to something. He tilted Max’s head up so he wouldn't see the magic skimming over his bandaged arm. A little life finally came into his face.

 

Max looked him over. “You’re Alec's boyfriend?”

 

A little zap went through Magnus’s chest. Like touching a live wire. “Uh,” he started, before realizing that this was not the time or place to discuss nuance and labels with an injured ten-year-old. “Yes. I am. Let's get this demon mess off of you and make sure you don't have a concussion and then we can portal back to the Institute.” Magnus snapped his fingers, removing the demon slime.

 

Max broke out of the last trace of his stupor. “No,” he said, working his way to his feet. “No, I’m not going back there. I can't go back there. I already ran away.”

 

Magnus fought down the urge to curse. This was a complication he should have seen coming. 

 

“Why did you run away?” He asked, playing for time to think.

 

Max looked down at him. He’d been surprised when he’d tracked Max to see that he looked nothing like Alec. Small, blond and blue eyed, the physical differences were jarring, but face to face with the boy he could see the way he was setting his shoulders just as Alec did. Jutting out his chin. Folding his arms and setting his stance wide. Turning from a scared child to a mini Shadowhunter. 

 

“Because I…” Max started, then sank back down a little. “I don't want to talk about it. But I’m not going back.”

 

“Then where are you going to go?”

 

Max cast his glance around the alley like he was looking for ideas. “Do you know Simon? Can you call him?”

 

Magnus sighed. “Max, I’m just going to tell you the truth, is that alright?”

 

Max’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. “Okay.”

 

“I can't call Simon. And I can't take you anywhere except the Institute. “

 

“But you’re magic.” The desperation in his voice was clear and heartbreaking.

 

“And you’re an underage Shadowhunter. If I take you anywhere except the Institute, I’m in violation of the Accords and I can be arrested. Probably killed, warlocks are almost never arrested.”

 

Max looked at him with big round eyes, and Magnus wondered if he really understood how humiliating it was to admit to this in a dark alley. To point out to a child that you were entirely powerless, because you were presumed to be a monster. If Max ran away right now, all Magnus was legally able to do was follow him.

 

“Oh.”

 

“I need to tell someone where we are.”

 

Max looked around the alley again. “I can't go back there. Please. Isn't there… can't you help me, please?”

 

Magnus cast through his memory of Clave law and came up blank on this point. He’d never exactly planned for what to do with a shadowhunter child except be rid of them as quickly as possible.

 

“We can go to a mundane place, since we’re escaping from a demon, but we need to let someone know where you are. A lot of worried people are looking for you. Can we call Alec?” Magnus asked.

 

Max bit his lip. “Can I call Alec?”

 

“Sure.” Magnus dug his phone out of his pocket, called Alec and handed the phone to Max, who looked a bit askance at the sparkly case before he took it.

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay,” Alec repeated, dropping down into Magnus’s couch. “Okay. I’m just going to call her.” He spun his phone in his hand and looked up at Magnus, who was standing at the drink cart, staring at the bottles with his hands at the back of his neck. His only response was raised eyebrows and a sharp nod.

 

“I mean, I can't make tonight worse,” Alec said, mostly to himself. 

 

Magnus nodded again, moved his hands from his neck snapped his fingers and replaced them.

 

“What was that for?” Alec asked. 

 

“Sound proofed his room,” Magnus said. “We can hear him but he can't hear us unless he opens the door. I have a feeling you’re going to yell.”

 

“I’m not going to yell,” Alec protested. 

 

Magnus gave him a skeptical look and snapped his fingers again. “That was to formally submit the contract Lydia signed to the Clave.”

 

Alec sighed. 

 

Magnus was partly right. He wanted to yell. He wanted to yell more than he had ever wanted to yell before. And it wasn't fair, or okay, or the right time, but he wanted to yell at his mother. He wanted to scream at her until he lost his voice. 

 

Max had been afraid to go home.

 

Alec had picked up his phone expecting news from Magnus only to hear Max start begging not to go back to the Institute. 

 

Because he thought their parents were going to be disappointed in him. Because he thought he'd done something wrong, or that there was something horribly wrong with him. Because he thought everything that had happened to him tonight was his fault.

 

And Alec knew exactly how that felt and exactly how hard it was not to feel that way. And how much harder his mother could make it feel.

 

“You could ask Lydia to call her,” Magnus said quietly, finally pulling a bottle off the rack. 

 

Alec watched Magnus pour. 

 

“Do you want anything?” Magnus asked. 

 

“What did you make Max?”

 

“Chai tea. It's soothing. I have something in mind to give him for the pain, I just want Je— Brother Zachariah to look him over first.”

 

“Later, you should tell me how you have the kind of standing that gets you house calls from the Brothers.”

 

Magnus shrugged. “It's a fabulous story. I’m brilliant in it. The Lightwoods don't come off very well.”

 

“I’m shocked.” Alec scoffed. Magnus snapped his fingers again and a small white cup with a trail of steam rising from it appeared on the coffee table in front of him.

 

Alec called his mother. She picked up on the first ring. 

 

“Did you find him? Where are you?”

 

Alec took a deep breath. “He’s safe. I’ve got him. He's awake, but resting, and Brother Zachariah is on his way.”

 

“I’m heading back to the Institute now. If you insist on keeping him in his room, I want him under watch this time. Have someone bring a cot in from the infirmary. I’ll take first shift and you can start making up a watch schedule for the next twenty hours.” 

 

Alec forced himself into that steady, calm place he’d forced himself into a thousand times before. “We’re not in the Institute. We’re at Magnus’s place.”

 

There was an icy, deadly calm on the other side of the line. “Excuse me?”

 

“We’re at Magnus’s place.”

 

Another silence that seemed to suck in other noise like a black hole. The tinkling of glass coming from where Magus stood making drinks seemed to grow quieter as Alec’s mother silence went on. 

 

“After everything that’s happened tonight, you decided to take him to that Warlock’s apartment?”

 

“No,” Alec barked back, then worked to bring his tone down. “I explained to him how important it was for him to come back to the Institute with me and he got hysterical.”

 

“And you couldn’t handle a hysterical ten year old?

 

“I did handle it,” Alec responded. “He was exhausted and injured and terrified and sobbing, and now he’s calm and laying down and having a cup of tea and half asleep.”

 

“The Law says—“

 

“I handled that too. We submitted a Writ of Temporary Shelter.”

 

Another pause. “We?”

 

Alec sighed. “Yeah, Magnus and I—“ he suddenly realized what she’d actually meant. “Lydia. Lydia signed it.”

 

He heard the scoff and chose to ignore it. “Look, Mom, Max had a traumatic night. He ran away because he was scared. Magnus saved him from a Brynak demon when he found him, and I wasn’t going to make tonight harder on my little brother. I _couldn’t_ make it harder, okay? He’s been through enough.”

 

“And you’ve been getting all of this… handled while you kept us all out searching for him? I’ve been walking around downtown scared to death with the fucking vampire while you were…making tea in Brooklyn?”

 

“He trusts Simon. He might have hidden from you, but not from Simon. I explained that. And if I had called you as soon as Magnus found him, Max would be locked in his room in the Institute right now screaming bloody murder and the Angel knows if he ever would have recovered from that. I am doing what I think is best for him.”

 

There was another pause, but this one didn’t have nearly the gravity that the previous ones had had. 

 

"Can I come see him?”

 

The question, and the vulnerable, almost begging tone, shocked Alec speechless. 

 

A pounding noise at the front door made him jump.

 

“Brother Zachariah,” Magnus said. “I’ll get it. Should we wait for you?”

 

“Just a second,” Alec said into the phone before pressing it to his chest. “Start without me if Max is okay with it. If he’s not I’ll be there in a couple minutes.” He set the phone back to his ear. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 

“You don’t.” She  sounded more defeated than upset.

 

Alec held in a groan of frustration. Isabelle had been right during the conversation that Alec could not believe had only taken place this morning. Even after everything that had happened, and as angry as he was, it was hard for him to hurt his mother like this. 

 

But Isabelle had been right about how important it was for the two of them to stand up for Max too. 

 

“He’s afraid of you,” Alec said in the least accusatory tone he could muster as Magnus ushered Brother Zachariah down the hallway to the guest room.

 

“What?”

 

“He’s devastated. He’s not thinking logically. He’s thinks he’s not a Shadowhunter and he’s convinced that you and Dad are going to be furious at him. Magnus has been able to keep the pain at bay with magic, and we’re going to ask Brother Zachariah what else we can do for him, but I’m not going to put him through anything else tonight. He needs to sleep. He doesn’t even want to see Isabelle right now. 

 

“You already called Isabelle.”

 

“Yeah. He talked to her a little on the phone. She’s going to bring him some things in the morning, but he didn’t want to see her tonight either. I’ll ask him again in the morning.”

 

“Okay. Okay. Call me back and report on what Brother Zachariah says. And you’re staying the night as well?”

 

“Yes,” Alec answered. 

 

“In the guest room?”

 

For some reason that was it for Alec. That was the line where he was going to start yelling. But instead, he just hung up. He turned his phone to silent, turned off the vibrate, tucked it into his pocket and went to the guest room. 

 

Magnus had very quickly… de-Magnused it while Alec had helped Max into a pair of pajamas Magnus had made appear out of thin air and into the kitchen. When Alec had slept in this room before, there had been a huge four poster bed hung with midnight blue silk embroidered with gold. The walls had been lined with stained glass sconces with candles in them, and there had been a hot tub sunk into the floor and a sort of daybed that had seemed to heavily imply it was not really for reclining fully clothed with a book.

 

Now the room was a lot less… _budoirish_ and a lot more “IKEA catalogue”. A light stained hardwood floor, a huge, low-set bed stacked with cozy looking sky-blue bedding and pillows. The windows seemed to be bigger than they had been before, and offered a sweeping view of the city. Gentle light suffused the room, but didn’t really seem to be coming from anywhere. 

 

And, on the little white nightstand behind Brother Zachariah, was a stack of comic books, and a reading lamp. 

 

Somehow, Alec suppressed an urge to walk over to Magnus, grab him by the face and kiss him senseless, and instead went to sit on the bed next to Max, who was apprehensively watching the Silent Brother unwrap his bandages again. 

 

* * *

 

 

Magnus chose the least audacious and most modest pajamas in his closet, put them on, got into bed, and began to quietly freak out.

 

Less than two weeks ago, Alec had been about to make a respectable Shadowhunter marriage to a respectable Shadowhunter girl. He’d told Magnus to back off. 

 

Since then, he’d kissed Magnus in front of half the Clave, they’d gone on two dates, Alec had slept here almost every night, Magnus had become the only person that Alec truly opened up to, and tonight Magnus had saved his younger brother’s life, made a highly public scramble for legal protection for himself and the child for the foreseeable future, and was one hundred percent convinced that Max would be staying here in the loft with him for a minimum of three days.

 

At some point in that mess of activity, Magnus had told Alec they should take it slow.

 

This was a disaster. 

 

It wasn't that Magnus was afraid of commitment. He was a monogamist at heart and there were very few periods in his life where he’d been involved with more than one person at a time. And even fewer periods where those multiple people hadn't all been involved with him, together, in a larger but still committed group.

 

He’d had enough relationships to know how badly diving in this hard could ruin relationships. Less than twenty four hours ago he’d told Alec it was way too soon for comfort sex. And now…

 

Something was going to go wrong. This was a recipe for something to go wrong.

 

His bedroom door creaked open. 

 

Magnus had expected Alec to enter with a tired smile, or maybe the exhausted look of fading anger he sometimes had when he came over after a long day. The look he had when he just wanted to get away from everything. 

 

He had not expected Alec to march across his bedroom, jump onto his bed, grab him by the neck and pull him into the single most blistering kiss they had ever shared, then press their foreheads together as though it was nothing. 

 

“You saved his life,” Alec whispered, and Magnus fought to find the correct response to so much situational whiplash. 

 

“He’s a tough little thing. He was holding his own. Is he asleep?”

 

Alec nodded against his forehead, but didn’t let him go. 

 

“Your mother?” Magnus asked after a few moments. “How angry is she?”

 

“I don’t know,” Alec answered. “She asked me where I was sleeping and I hung up on her.”

 

Magnus snorted. Alec kissed him again and Magnus smoothed his hands down Alec's cheeks and pulled back.

 

“How are you doing?”

 

“Fine,” Alec replied. “I texted her what Brother Zachariah said. Max is healing as expected. There's no sign he could be forsaken. He drank that elixir you made him and dropped right off.”

 

Alec leaned in to kiss him again.

 

“That's not what I asked,” Magnus interrupted. 

 

What was he doing? This was the time for comfort sex. Given everything that had happened in the last two weeks, the thing to do right now was help Alec avoid an overload of emotions and discussions. You couldn’t skip through the fun part of the relationship, the learning about each other stage, the experimenting stage, the every-thing-being-new stage and directly into the shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on, someone you know will fight alongside you through anything phase. You had to work up to it. You had to build a foundation under that. Magnus knew he was pushing for too much too fast right now. He knew that right now, he should just stick his thumbs in Alec's waistband and see how far Alec was willing to go.

 

Alec looked stunned for a second. He stared at Magnus. Magnus stared back.

 

“I… I don't know. I’m fine. I mean…” he blew out a breath and Magnus felt the moment to pull back pass them by. “I’m scared, Magnus.This has never happened before. No one knows anything about this. No one knows what to do.”  Alec dropped back onto his usual side of the bed. “The worst thing a Shadowhunter can do is _not be the right kind of Shadowhunter_. That’s been the last two weeks of my life, but at least I made a decision. As an adult. Who’d had ten years to think about it. Max just did everything right and got blindsided on the most important day of his life. I’ve been telling him that it’ll be okay all night. And I don’t think I’m telling him the truth.” Alec’s voice broke, just a little, over the last few words. They’d officially gone too far. They’d officially made everything serious, and fragile. Magnus could feel it. He could feel the shift like it was water being dumped over him.

 

“It’s the right thing to say, Alec,” Magnus told him, slotting his fingers into the spaces between Alec’s. “And you might be able to make it true.”

 

Alec closed his eyes. “Does it make me a monster that I can’t even think about that right now?”

 

Magnus scooted down on the bed, pressing his side to Alec’s. “No, of course not. You’ve had a long night too. You’re exhausted and scared too.”

 

“I just don’t think I have the energy to fight the Clave on two fronts. No, three,” Alec huffed and pressed his free hand to his eyes. “Three. Fuck. I forgot about Jace. Keep myself out of the Clave’s sights. Don’t let Max’s life be ruined. Don’t let Jace die.”

 

Magnus sighed. He’d known that he would end up volunteering to shoulder some of the weight Alec would take on by choosing Magnus. The clave being homophobic and anti-downworlder and generally incapable of letting anyone be happy instead of productive? He’d know that would drop on them fast. He’d even expected it to be a major focus of their early time together. He’d done that before, fought off the disapproving society. He was ready. He was willing. 

 

“I really don’t know if I can get up tomorrow morning, go back to the Institute and fight for myself, Jace, and Max,” Alec whispered. “I don’t know if I can do that alone.”

 

Magnus turned to him, and kissed him on the cheek. “You won’t be alone. You’re not alone.” He kissed Alec again. Alec turned his head and tried to return the kiss, his lips brushing just over the edge of Magnus’s chin. Alec shuffled himself onto his side, and gave Magnus a real kiss, then another and another

 

“Is this okay?” Alec asked quietly, pulling back. 

 

“What?” Magnus asked. 

 

“The other day?” Alec said. “I’m not using you to forget about my problems. I just…”

 

“Shh,” Magnus said. “This is different. This is fine.” He slid his hand around Alec’s waist, up under his shirt. “I want to make you feel better right now. It’s okay if this is how.”

 

Alec let out a sigh of relief and pushed back into another kiss, wrapping his arms around Magnus and pulling him tight. 

 

“Hey,” he asked suddenly. “Max’s room is still sound proofed, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Magnus said. “It is.”

 

“Okay,” Alec said, lifting himself up and throwing off his shirt. “Come here.”

 


	14. Uneasy Truces

* * *

 

  
**

Simon stood very still as he watched Maryse end her phone call and jam her phone into her slim-lined black coat. He had barely spoken to her since Alec had sent them to check out Midtown Comics, mostly because he was afraid that he would open his mouth and something like “So… How many vampires have you actually killed?” would come out.

She didn’t turn right away after ending the phone call. She stood, chin up and back straight.

Simon knew what that was. His mother used to do that to him all the time, after his father died, when she didn’t want him to see her cry. She would pull herself together until she could wipe her eyes and turn around with dry cheeks.

But you could always tell.

He watched Maryse lift an arm. Watched her turn her head back and forth, obviously wiping away tears. When she turned back to him her eyes were red, her cheeks were dry, and her lips were pressed tightly together.

“The car should be waiting,” she snapped at him as she walked past.

Simon wondered if she realized that he’d heard the whole conversation. She was a big, badass shadowhunter, sure, but she seemed pretty stretched to the limit. He didn’t want to make things worse, especially not when he was going to be stuck in a car with her for at least half an hour.

“So, Max is okay?” Simon asked, catching up to her.

Maryse didn’t look at him. “He’s resting.”

“Okay. And he’s safe? Nothing else happened to him? He’s going to be fine?”

Maryse stopped, and turned to him. “Why you?”

“What?” Simon asked, puzzled.

“Alec thought Max would prefer seeing you to seeing me. We’re standing in a place you told him about, and that I have never heard of. Why is that, Vampire?”

Simon wrapped his arms around himself, and reminded himself again that Maryse was hurting.

“It makes me wonder how much you’re not letting on about your encanto skills. I’ve never seen anything like the display back at the Institute.”

Simon tightened his grip against his sweater. “I didn’t even know I could do that. I only did it because Alec …” Simon didn’t quite have a word for what Alec had done with him. The only ones that came to mind were too ugly to take into account that Alec had done it for a good cause. “Because it seemed to be helping.”

Maryse kept watching him.

“Look, it’s not even about you. I’m just new. And I treat him like a kid.” Simon shrugged. “I don’t know a lot about Shadowhunter stuff, but I know about embarrassment. When I was… oh, a little bit younger than Max our school put on a little holiday concert, and I had a solo, and I got up there and forgot all the words. It was humiliating.”

Maryse scoffed and looked away from him, but she didn’t keep walking away, so Simon kept talking.

“I bolted off stage. I hid in the boys bathroom so that Clary and my Mom wouldn’t be able to find me, and I ended up talking to some fifth grader about it for a long time. Cause he didn’t care about some kid’s stupid solo.”

Maryse walked away, and Simon followed behind her, continuing. “And like, a four line solo is no big deal, really. Not like what happened to Max.”

She stopped again, but didn’t turn. She just forced her spine even straighter, and kept walking out the door.

With a sigh, Simon followed a few steps behind.

**

Pain and anguish went through Jace like a flood. He felt like he’d been making his way across the other side of the levy, carefully, quietly, struggling to get to higher ground, when the wall had broken, and the feelings had consumed him.

He dropped his bow staff and fell to his knees. His opponent’s staff cracked over his skull, once, then again.

Valentine yelled his name, barking it out like it was an order in itself. Jace launched himself forward, taking the recruit’s legs out inelegantly, but effectively. He crawled up the other man’s struggling body and started swinging wildly, not even landing every hit, just too overcome and disoriented to stop.

He hit the recruit until the other man stopped moving, then hit him again and again as the feeling rushing over him, pouring in through the parabatai bond, got stronger and stronger.

Something awful was happening at the Institute. There was blood on his hands. Something awful was happening to Alec. Jace felt a bone break under his fists. No one was stopping him. He was fighting with outrage and hurt that wasn’t his, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t pull back. He was out of control.

He was going to kill this man.

He may have already killed him.

A kick in the ribs finally made him stop. Fall to the side. He was looking up into Valentine’s face.

“Go to your cabin,” Valentine told him.

No admonishment for losing control. Wasting effort. Nothing. Just an order, so Jace took it, retreating to his cabin, locking the door behind him and feeling the tears already warm on his cheeks.

He dropped onto his bed in the dark, reaching through the bond looking for that feeling of warmth and peace that he’d grown so reliant on in the last two weeks. The feeling he knew came from Alec leaving the Institute, going to Magnus.

It wasn’t there. There was only cold and hurt, echoing his own, back and forth until the feeling of helplessness was paralyzing.

**

Alec had nightmares all night. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d bolted upright fast enough, or gasped loud enough to wake Magnus, or how many of those had been quiet breaks in disjointed sleep, or even just part of the ongoing dreams, but when he finally woke up to Magnus’s warm body wrapped around his own, and Magnus’s ridiculously fucking expensive sheets soft underneath him, he was exhausted and freezing. His hip was throbbing and there was a sticky, dark feeling running through him, like tar in his veins.

He lifted himself up, wondering what had woken him this time, and then heard the sound again.

A rapping at Magnus’s bedroom door, and a soft voice.

“Alec?”

Max.

Last night came back to him like a soft rain turning to a drizzle, then a downpour. Max’s ceremony. Everything going wrong. The Silent Brother by his bedside. His empty bed. The frantic phone calls with Max and Magnus and Izzy.

Bringing Max here.

Alec ran his hands over his face.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he called back.

Magnus made a strange waking-up noise next to him, half a snore and half muffled words, as Alec pulled out of his arms and started toward the door—

—Which opened.

For a moment, Alec’s entire mind filled with the image that Max must have been taking in at that moment. Alec, shirtless, but wearing soft, blue cotton pajama bottoms, moving toward the door. Behind him Magnus in his silk pajamas and smeared eye makeup, a glaring hickey on his neck, climbing out of tousled, pink, satin sheets.

It gave Alec a jolt of panic, but he pushed it away. Max wasn’t old enough to imagine anything that had happened in this bed last night and he hadn’t been able to hear any of it, and based on only conversation they’d ever had about it, even if he did understand— he didn’t care.

“Alec, look,” Max said, running into the bedroom to meet Alec and holding his hand up for Alec’s inspection. “The rune, Alec, look at it. It’s coming back. It’s getting darker. You can tell. See?”

Alec took his brother’s wrist and examined the voyance rune on the back of his hand, which did, in fact, look darker. It wasn’t black the way a permanent rune should be, or dark pink the way an active rune should be. But it also didn’t look like the scar left by a burnt out rune like it had last night.

“That looks good, Max,” Alec told him as encouragingly as he could manage. He moved his hand down Max’s forearm, barely touching the bandage. “How about your arm? Better?”

The tentative hope on Max’s face faded. “Um… it hurts.”

“A lot?”

Max shrugged.

Alec heard Magnus snap his fingers behind him. A mug appeared next to them.

“That should help,” Magnus said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Alec watched as Max took in Magnus. He was sure he could see the moment that Max started to wonder about the fact that Alec had slept in here, but maybe it was just paranoia.

Max looked from Magnus back to Alec, picked up the mug and took a deep drink. “I’m not going back to the Institute today.”

Alec sighed. “Max—“

“Is anyone else absolutely dying for waffles?” Magnus interrupted.

Max stared at Alec for another long moment, then looked to the shadow of a rune on his wrist, then past Alec, at Magnus.

“With strawberries?”

“Of course,” Magnus replied. “And whip cream. Why don’t you get one of your comic books so you have something to read while we make them? We’ll be right behind you.”

The expression on Max’s face made it clear that he understood that he was being distracted to keep him out of an adult conversation, but he still agreed and left.

The door magically closed behind him.

“I have to go in to the Institute today,” Alec said. “My mother is going to be frantic. And livid.” He went to the nightstand and grabbed his phone. He already had two missed calls and a few texts. He started tapping out an assurance that Max was still okay.

“Legally? He doesn’t even have to talk to her for two more weeks,” Magnus said. “The contract is written very specifically.”

“And what? He stays here with us— you?” Alec felt the blush hit his cheeks. His number one priority was protecting Max, yes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t well aware of the fact that he and Magnus had been dating for two weeks, and no one was ready to drop taking care of a ten year old into that already extremely volatile equation.

“I’m not going to promise him that without your approval,” Magnus said in a restrained tone. Almost like the one he’d been using to calm Max down last night.

Alec looked at Magnus.

Magnus quirked an eyebrow. “I’ve taken care of children before.”

Alec stopped himself from asking when, and nodded.

“And he should keep taking that potion regularly for a couple days.”

Alec stared down at the carpet trying to weigh as many pros and cons as possible, as fast as he could manage.

It was so much to ask. The longer Max stayed, the harder it would be to go back. The Clave would be even more suspicious of all them. His mother would hate Magnus even more.

But there was no one here to whisper about him. Interrogate him about what he might have done to cause this. He could sit in peace and read his comic books while people worked some of the gossiping out of their systems.

A day or two. There was more good than harm in a day or two.

“Are you sure about this?” Alec asked.

“He needs more than a day to recover. The rune is still changing. He isn't stable yet.”

“Are you doing this for me?”

Magnus narrowed his eyes. “Of course.”

“Okay,” Alec sighed. “I’ll send Izzy over?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. “

***  
Maryse hadn't slept at all. Not a wink. She hadn't even laid down most of the night.

Robert left as soon as Alec texted that he was leaving Max with Magnus.

Maryse called Alec back, but just ended up yelling into his voicemail.

Twice.

She waited for him at the front door, but he walked past her with another assurance that Max was fine. He said he needed to see Lydia.

She grabbed him by the arm.

His face was surprisingly soft.

“He’s healing?”

“Yes,” Alec told her. “He's in pain, but Magnus is managing it.”

“And the rune?”

Alec's face twisted. He shrugged her off and marched inside.


	15. Unexpected Allies

 

***

 

There was a little alcove set back in the windows of the training room. If you stood back, and wore black, you were nearly invisible from the training room floor.

 

Maryse stood, watching Alec with Adeline and Clary. He was clear and patient, and coaxing better results out of both of them every day. Adeline especially. Yesterday she’d hit her first bullseye with an arrow. She’d cried out in delight, jumped up and down, dropped the bow and launched herself at Alec, hugging him tightly around the waist. 

 

It was hard to watch, knowing Alec would never teach his own daughter, and wondering why on earth he didn’t want that.  

 

Her children were the great joy of Maryse’s life, and with Robert finally gone— not just emotionally, or sexually, but actually, finally on the other side of the world, she was starting to really think about, not just how much she had sacrificed for them, but how much of herself she had poured into them. How much comfort and strength she had drawn from them. How many times she had kept fighting because she had children who needed her at home. 

 

“I see I’m not the only one who knows about this spot,” a soft voice said behind her. 

 

“Jocelyn,” Maryse said, trying to hide her surprise. 

 

Jocelyn shrugged and walked out of the deepest part of the shadow. She looked utterly mundane, in a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. “I came up here to watch Clary train. Masochistic, isn’t it?”

 

“Because she’s training with a ten-year-old and she’s noticeably behind?” Maryse asked. 

 

Jocelyn didn’t answer that. Instead, she walked up to the railing and leaned over it. 

 

“She was supposed to go to art school,” Jocelyn said finally.  “Art school, then wind up working as barista and living at home while working on becoming a graphic designer. Or getting a paralegal certificate so she could finally start paying some off her school debt.” Jocelyn gave a weak little laugh. 

 

“You must have known she couldn’t stay a mundane forever. Were you going to pay that warlock to wipe her memory for the rest of her life?”

 

Jocelyn shrugged. “I knew I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t completely delusional. I just… I wanted all the time I could take. Luke convinced me that I’d have to tell her before she started school. We decided that her eighteenth birthday was the right time… and if I’d said something earlier. Just an hour earlier, maybe she wouldn’t be here now. Maybe she’d be in class at the art academy. Maybe everything would have been okay.”

 

Maryse shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Jocelyn.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I put everything I had into making my children the best shadowhunters they could be. Strongest, fastest, smartest, fiercest.”

 

“Most loyal,” Jocelyn added. 

 

Maryse scoffed. 

 

The two of them watched Alec and Clary for a little while longer. 

 

“If they told you how hard being a mother really was, no one would do it,” Jocelyn said eventually.

 

Despite herself, a small laugh escaped Maryse. “At least you weren’t the first to have children. And your mother was still alive. I remember when Alec was a newborn. It was almost like having a doll. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. He’d fuss and fuss. I carried him everywhere. Talked to him all the time. He was so small, so soft.”

 

“I remember the way you used to comb his hair,” Jocelyn said. “With your fingers while you were talking. And his little eyes would droop shut and he would drool and drool.”

 

“He was the one perfect thing in a world I didn’t recognize anymore,” Maryse whispered, the confession so clear in her tone that it shocked her. “And I aways told him what a hero he would be when he grew up.”

 

Jocelyn looked up at her, then back to the training floor, where Alec was trying to get Clary to land a kick correctly. 

 

“When I was pregnant with Clary, I used to have dreams about her all the time. The same dream. We would be sitting across each other at the dinner table in my parent’s house, drawing. And I was using these thick charcoal sticks and she was using a stele. And when I dreamt about her, she had this strangely deep laugh, and she was this chubby little thing, chubby like Alec was when he was born. And she had big green eyes. Topaz skin. Hair like storm clouds.”

 

Maryse looked down at Clary’s fiery hair and milky skin, then back into the past she’d shared with Jocelyn. 

 

“Oh.”

 

Jocelyn nodded. “Yeah.”

 

“Had you and Lucien—“

 

“No,” Jocelyn interrupted, standing up and wrapping her arms around herself. “But I knew what Valentine was. I was planning my escape. Luke was… is the best person I know. And I wanted so badly for Clary to be better than I was.”

 

“Isn’t that what we all want for our children?” Maryse heard herself asking. 

 

“To _be_ better or _have_ better?”

 

“We failed, Jocelyn. And it was right that we did.”

 

“We started with the right idea and the wrong man,” Jocelyn said softly. “It’s so easy to do.”

 

Jocelyn leaned back over the railing and the two of them watched the training for a few more silent moments before Jocelyn spoke again. “For what it’s worth, over and over again, Magnus Bane has proven himself to be a good man. He’s kind and compassionate and he takes care of the people who are important to him. From what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen, I’m sure he’s a very loving person.”

 

Maryse snorted. “He hasn’t taken your son.”

 

“He hasn’t taken yours either,” Jocelyn replied. “The  boy didn’t ask for any of this, Maryse. He’s worked so hard to be everything you wanted him to be, it’s not his fault that couldn’t do it.”

 

“I know,” Maryse replied, her throat tightening. “But… you hold that little body in your arms and you stare into that face, and you devote so much. You promise so much. You aren’t allowed to expect anything?”

 

“That’s not what I’m saying.  You can want things for them. God knows I did.”

 

Below them, Alec shouted some sort of affirmation at Clary, who raised her arms in celebration.

 

Jocelyn sighed.

 

“And when they don't want those things, you mourn that version of them you were picturing. But we’re Shadowhunters Maryse. You grieve, but you get back to work.”

 

Maryse felt tears sting at the corners of her eyes. “I can’t even get Max to talk to me on the phone. He’s hurt, and he’s gone and I haven’t heard his voice in days.”

 

Jocelyn nodded and stood slowly back up. “I was talking about Alec.”

 

Maryse stared and her, and wiped a tear from her eye. “How bad is it that I assumed you would think I’m such a monster that I was angry at my youngest son for having some sort of condition on one’s ever seen before?”

 

“It’s not great,” Jocelyn replied. 

 

“Alec made a choice.”

 

“Yes. He chose to do what he was told over and over again, year after year, until finally too much was asked of him. I remember a very similar thing happening to you. Not so long ago.”

 

Silence fell as they watched Alec train Clary and Adeline. Alec's phone rang. He moved to the side of the training floor. Maryse could tell, somehow, who he was talking to. 

 

Jocelyn squeezed her hand, then left.

 

Alec pocketed his phone, said something to the girls, and walked out of the training room.

 

***

“You don’t have to watch me.”

 

The sound actually startled Magnus, the living room had been quiet for so long he’d assumed Max was asleep. He’d nearly forgotten that he was even there. 

 

Max had crawled onto one of the window seats with a comic book, set the book behind him, and had been staring out the window, completely unmoving, for the last three hours. 

 

“I’m not watching you,” Magnus replied. “The light is better out here. This is fiddly work.”

 

That had worked on the child yesterday. He’d asked Magnus if he could watch if he stayed quiet, and Magnus had let him. He’d even let him measure out a few ingredients, and taught him the correct way to stir a potion. 

 

But the rune on Max’s hand, which had slowly been starting to blacken, began to fade later in the day. One of the scars on his forearm had cracked back open, like a creme brûlée. They’d had to call Brother Zachariah back in. He’d put a salve on the wound, given Magnus the directions to make more, and privately told Alec and Magnus, that, while Max would eventually heal, it was becoming more and more certain that he would never wear runes. 

 

They hadn’t told Max this, but the child seemed to just know. He’d been dragging himself around the loft like a dying cat since Brother Zachariah had left. 

 

Magnus’s usual method of reacting to the youngest Lightwood’s melancholy had been to simply do his best to make Max comfortable. Pain medicine, tea, comic books, comfort food. But this latest blow to the boy’s last spring of hope seemed to demand more. 

 

Magnus had had an idea, around the second hour of Max’s staring out the window.  He’d tried to run it past Alec first, but Alec hadn’t gotten back to him right away.  He and Lydia had started making calls, trying to find a Shadowhunter family both sympathetic enough and well connected enough to retrieve objects from Michael Wayland’s Idris estate, in the hopes that one of them would allow Magnus and Alec to track Jace and Valentine overwater. 

 

So Magnus had made an executive decision, and then sent a few texts. The boy had been living here for nearly a week, spending his days with Magnus. Magnus may not have been sure that his ploy would help, but he was certain that it would make nothing worse. His last idea for how to make Max realize that not all hope was lost was supposed to be here any moment. 

 

But would probably be late. 

 

Magnus sighed. “Would you like to help with this potion?” 

 

Max didn’t answer.

 

The silence gaped on for a few more minutes, and finally, there was a knock on the door. 

 

Max didn’t react. 

 

Magnus went to the door and opened it, sighing in relief when he saw the vampire standing there. 

 

“Hey,” Simon whispered. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “How’s he doing?”

 

“Badly,” Magnus answered in a voice he knew only a vampire could hear. 

 

Simon tucked his lips into a thin line. “Poor kid. Okay… so… what am I supposed to do?”

 

“Just… see if you can get him to talk.” Magnus held up a twenty dollar bill. “Get him to leave the apartment if you’re up for performing a miracle.”

 

Simon took the twenty like it was a scroll of the king’s orders, squared his shoulders and marched across the apartment. 

 

“Hey, Max. I wanted to come visit you. See how you were.”

 

It was almost miracle enough that Max sat up. 

 

***

 


	16. Strategy and Resources

“No, it’s fine,” Alec assured Magnus as he tucked his cellphone more tightly between his ear and his shoulder. “It was a good call to bring in Simon.”

 

“I hope it’s helping. They talked in the living room for a while and Simon somehow convinced him to get a pastry at the coffee shop across the street.”

 

“Simon got him out of the loft? Are you serious?” Alec asked, pausing his search through Jace’s room for a moment. 

 

“It’s fine,” Magnus replied. “I’m tracking them both and if they so much as switch tables the barista will text me. I have a lot of clients over there.”

 

“No, it’s not even that, I’m just surprised. I haven’t even been able to get him out into the hallway.”

 

“I don’t get it either, but Simon has a way with kids, and I’m thankful. How about you? Any luck on your end?”

 

Alec sighed. “No. I’ve been going through Jace’s room for an hour. The reason no one can find anything to track him with is he doesn’t have anything. There’s nothing in his room but clothes. And nearly all of it is fighting gear or work out clothes. He has books but they’re all from the institute library. And no one in Idris will take a call from me and it sounds like so many of old manors from people in the circle were razed and built over. There probably isn’t anything,” Alec swallowed and forced himself to say what he’d been thinking over and over again as he dug through Jace’s spartan room. “And I should have known that about him. He came to us with practically nothing. He had one toy, one change of clothes and an extra pair of boots. That finally makes sense now.”

 

“What about Lydia, how are her inquiries going?”

 

“I’m meeting with her in ten minutes. Hopefully she’s got something big, because she told me to make sure no one sees me on my way there.”

 

 “And have you told anyone what Brother Zachariah said?”

 

“No,” Alec said, swallowing hard. 

 

He’d tried. Telling his family that Max would probably never bear runes had been the only thing on his mind all day. He’d totally overloaded himself with training and research and going through Jace’s room with a fine tooth comb, all to delay the moment when he would have to go to Izzy and his mother and watch their faces as he told them a truth he could barely face himself. 

 

It was a horribly familiar feeling. 

 

He slammed the drawer he’d been digging through shut. 

 

“I guess I’m hoping that something happens tomorrow,” Alec admitted in a whisper. “Something good. I mean… since enough terrible stuff has come out of nowhere… maybe there will be one good thing too.”

 

“I’m sure we’ll find something to track Jace with, Alec.”

 

 “I’ll come over after I meet with Lydia. Should I bring him anything?”

 

“Blood for Simon is probably the best suggestion.”

 

Alec ignored the churn in his stomach. He owed Simon now.

 

“Yeah. I know where he keeps his. See you soon?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

 

Maryse watched the stone in her hand. A High Warlock’s wards could extend as far as a city block from their lair.

 

And a warlock who most certainly did not want to speak with her, and had more than enough of her family DNA in his loft, may be aware of her approach from two to three blocks away. 

 

But the stone wasn’t glowing yet. 

 

This was a good idea, she reminded herself. A better idea than staying in the Institute wondering what in the hell had happened during Alec’s sudden meeting outside the Institute in the middle of the day. 

 

Clearly, there were a million things she hadn’t know about her children, but she knew when they were upset, and Alec had been a mess when he’d come back. There weren’t in a place where she could walk up to him and ask what was wrong… but she had a gut feeling it was about Max, and she had to know the truth. 

 

The stone in her hand flashed blue and she picked up the pace. 

 

Legally, Magnus couldn’t stop her from coming in to visit her child. His specific contract was water tight, but the law was very clear. She could come to see Max, and as long as she was not threatening or disruptive, she had half an hour within the warlock’s wards before he was legally allowed to remove her. 

 

She still couldn’t take Max home unless he agreed to come with her. And if he came home and left again, she couldn’t make him stay. 

 

But she had half an hour. Half an hour to talk to him. See him. See if he was alright beyond Alec’s terse text messages. 

 

She was not going to yell. She was going to speak to Magnus with all the reserve that she knew she could muster.

 

Even if Alec was there. 

 

She tried not to think about that in too much detail. Alec had slept at the Institute two or three times since he’d kissed Magnus in front of everyone. She remembered being that age. She remembered how she’d felt about Robert before the circle had fallen and he’d spent twenty years saying stupid things and being an incompetent, cheating piece of shit. 

 

Hopefully they had the decency not to be inappropriate around Max. 

 

Probably they didn’t.

 

Half an hour, she reminded herself, rushing around a slow moving tourist couple on the sidewalk. Half an hour to convince her boy to come home. 

 

* * *

 

 

In accordance with Lydia’s texted directions, Alec marched down the dormitory hallway, and ducked into her unlocked room without knocking. She was sitting at her desk when he walked in, shifting through papers. 

 

She gave him a brief, small smile of welcome. “How is Max doing?” she asked. 

 

“What’s with the spy bullshit?” Alec replied. 

 

“I didn’t want anyone to see you.”

 

“That is what I _meant_ by spy bullshit.”

 

Lydia’s face went hard. She set down the papers she’d been shuffling through and stood up. “Fine. You and I… have caused some waves lately.”

 

“Waves?” Alec asked. 

 

Lydia looked at him again, for a little too long, then sat down at the edge of her desk, arms folded across her chest. “Fine. No more bullshit. Valentine’s return has shaken Idris. Power in the Clave is shifting. Pangborn has strong allies who want to work toward better relationships between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, everyone wants to find a way to have more shadowhunters without linking their efforts to the way Valentine has chosen to use the Cup.”

 

“And?” Alec demanded, the churn in his stomach starting again. 

 

“And publicly removing your mother from leadership position at this Institute could be a powerful first step toward making all of those desires reality.”

 

Alec looked Lydia over. Her hair was tightly braided. She looked much more professional than she had lately in a crisp blazer and black dress. 

 

“Should I guess who you think is going to replace her, or are you going to look me in the eye and tell me?”

 

Lydia’s lips went tight for a moment. “You and I are going to replace her.”

* * *

 

 

It took Maryse five minutes to reach Magnus’s front door after the stone started to glow. She stood outside it for one more. She refused to be out of breath in front of the warlock. 

 

He answered at her first knock. 

 

“Warlock Bane,” she said as evenly as she could. “I’m here to see my son.”

 

Too late she realized she had phrased that stupidly. She didn’t have time to waste on Magnus being arch and unhelpful, and shouldn’t have allowed him such an easy opportunity to be both. 

 

But Magnus just waved her in. “Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee? Wine?” he turned back to her and looked her up and down. He raised a finger and narrowed his eyes. “No… bourbon. Neat.”

 

She glared at him. He didn’t need to know he was right. “Magnus, I came here to speak to Max. Not to have a drink with you. Do not waste my time.”

 

“I’m not thrilled at the prospect of an aperitif with you either,” Magnus sighed, heading into his kitchen and pulling two mugs down from the cupboard. “And I’m… probably… not going to hold the time clause against you, if you don’t hold what I’m about to say against me.” He filled both mugs with water, snapped his fingers and walked back into the main room. A fine thread of steam wafted above both mugs and he handed one to Maryse. 

 

“Neither of your sons are here.”

 

Rage welled up in Maryse so quickly she nearly threw her mug to the ground, but she forced herself into a rigid calm. 

 

Magnus gave her a completely unimpressed look. 

 

“He’s safe. He’s with an adult, and trust me, it’s for the good that he got out of the loft today. Please accept my invitation to take a seat, and I can fill you in while we wait for him to get back.”

 

“Where is he?” Maryse demanded. 

 

With a wave of the warlock’s hand, a map appeared between them, with two glowing white dots inside the depiction of the building across the street. 

 

“He’s right there, with Simon. Well within the wards, both of them are tracked, and I called ahead to the barista, who has the Sight, and will text me if they so much as switch to another table.”

 

“You sent my son off with a vampire?”

 

“You’ve met Simon. Don’t fake that level of indignation over nothing.” The warlock went still for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was the softest Maryse had ever heard it. “Today was a bad day for him, Maryse, we hadn’t thought of a way to tell you yet.”

 

“We?”

 

Magnus raised his eyebrows. 

 

“Right.”

 

“That invitation still stands.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You and I?” Alec asked. “How?”

 

“Your mother has to step down.”

 

“Step down?” Alec asked. “From what? I though you were the head of the Institute now?”

 

“I’m running the Institute, but technically, this Institute still belongs to the Lightwood family. Without death, serious disciplinary action, or resignation coming into play, it’s incredibly difficult to move an Institute out of the control of a family with children.”

 

“More serious than Izzy nearly being stripped of her runes?”

 

“Alec, like half of breaches of the Law can be punished with being stripped of your runes. The Law is hard.”

 

“But it is—“

 

“No, Alec, the Law is too hard!” Lydia shouted, jumping up from her desk. Alec stepped away from her, and watched her struggle to compose herself. “It’s math, Alec. The Clave is fighting against pure, fucking multiplication. More demons are breaking into our dimension every year and Shadowhunter numbers are dwindling every year. Why do you think the Clave really went after Isabelle as hard as they did? It wouldn’t have been that hard to prove that the Clave’s orders threatened local relationships with the Seelies. It wouldn’t have even been that hard to land the fault with Valentine where it belongs. Isabelle got paraded in front of everyone the way she did because she _fucked a Seelie_ , not because a nothing mission with a nobody Seelie knight went bad.”

 

Lydia lowered herself back down onto her desk and crossed her arms in front her again. This time, Alec could see her fingers digging into the fabric of her blazer. 

 

“The only reason that anyone gave a damn about going after Izzy, the only reason any gives a damn that you’re gay, the only reason your parents escaped jail and Circle runes to being with? Legacy.” Lydia snorted, as though she’d just heard someone else say something ludicrously pompous. “Why sugarcoat it? Reproduction. There are too many demons and not enough Shadowhunters, and now the Clave can’t run around with the cup trying to create more Shadowhunters, because Valentine is doing it and the optics are bad.”

 

Alec took a deep breath. “Nothing you just said, makes me feel better about the “you and I” part of this idea. We’re not,” Alec waved a hand between the two of them. “Reproducing.”

 

“I know that,” Lydia answered. “But we have good relationships with the local downworlders. Luke? Simon? Magnus? We may be able to heal our relationship with Meliorn. We have the space to take in plenty of orphaned Shadowhunters, and the resources to train them, and train them well. We have the best shot of any Institute to take down Valentine— and if we do? We can bend the Laws until they nearly break. We can treat the downworlders humanely, work along side them to keep the demon infiltration at bay. Make real alliances. The Old Guard of the Clave are losing power. We can be a shining example of making a new way work, but  we need to start with a peaceful transition, and a powerful symbol. Your mother, who hates downworlders, and unfairly received preferential treatment from the Clave, admits the world is changing, and _gives_ us the Institute, instead of letting the Clave just send in another backward, ass kissing couple with a handful of brats come in and ruin all that potential.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sitting across from Maryse Lightwood was unpleasant and surreal. 

 

Magnus had known more than enough Lightwoods through the centuries, and he’d had more than enough evenings sitting with Alec Lightwood, cataloging all the ways Alec was different than, and superior to, his entire ancestry. 

 

Maryse was like the unnecessary linchpin between generations of haughty, awful Lightwoods, and Isabelle, Alec and Max, the only three triumphs in the entire bloodline. 

 

She was beautiful in the same way Isabelle was beautiful, with the same shining, intelligent eyes. Max had her mouth, and held himself overly upright in the same way his mother did. 

 

Alec… Alec had her cheekbones. Her regulated movements. The same quality of stillness. 

 

And the exact same vulnerability. They looked fragile in such a similar way, Magnus felt like telling Maryse the truth about Max’s condition was like watching the news hurt Alec all over again. 

 

She’d been staring into her tea in silence ever since he’d told her, and as the minutes passed, Magnus found himself actually feeling sorry for Maryse Lightwood. 

 

“Does he know?” Maryse finally asked, her voice moving through the utterly silent room like a sudden downpour. “What Brother Zacariah said? Have you told Max?”

 

“No,” Magnus said. “But I think he knows.”

 

Maryse let her head fall forward, then dragged it back up. “You… you are aware of my family’s history with the downworld.”

 

“Probably more aware than you are,” Magnus replied, thinking of that Lightwood from late 19th century who had thrown so many demon orgies he caught a literal STD from Hell and turned into a worm monster. 

 

“Could it be a curse?”

 

Magnus sipped his tea. “No. There’s nothing that could work like that. Angel magic… isn’t like anything else. The power of the runes comes from the Angel, and from the Angel blood of Shadowhunters, and the rune itself. When you rune yourselves, you… draw on your own form of magic to create a form of magic, and that magic… echoes back?” Magnus sighed and tried again. “It’s like lighting candles from other candles.” He conjured a seven fixture candelabra.  Maryse was smart, but clearly too stunned to absorb much, and he was explaining the most basic, but deeply complex mystery of a very secret and barely understood form of magic. 

 

He snapped his fingers, lighting the middle candle. “This light is the Angel’s magic.” He picked up another candle and lit it from the center candle. “This candle is the magic of the nephilim.” Using the candle in his hand, he lit the third candle. “This is the magic of the rune. They are all their own source of magic.”

 

The candle light shone in Maryse’s dark eyes, and Magnus suddenly realized, on her cheeks. 

 

He used the third candle to light a forth. “So… did I light this candle with the magic of the angel, the nephilim blood, or the rune?”

 

Maryse stared at the candles between them.  “Everything is lit from the Angel’s magic. It’s the source.” 

 

“Yes, but if I dropped this candle on the floor,” Magnus picked up the fourth candle. “The rug would still catch fire. It’s actually even more complicated.” He snapped his fingers, turning out every light in his apartment, and pushed the fourth candle back into the candelabra, so that he and Maryse were in looking at each other over the candlelight. “The core question of Angel Magic, nephilim magic, and rune magic, which no one has ever satisfactorily answered. Which candle is the light in the room coming from?”

 

Maryse looked up at him, her face turning hard again, and Magnus turned his lights back on and made the candelabra vanish. “What is known, is that no magic can completely block, corrupt, or stop Angel magic. If you disfigure a rune, a new one can be drawn. But nothing can stop the power of the nephilim blood, or cut off the other forms of angel magic from the existence of Angels.” 

 

Maryse nodded, the last traces of the stunned look finally leaving her face. “Tell the vampire to bring him back. I need to speak to him.”

 

“Are you going to tell—“

 

“I am his mother!” Maryse hissed, but she softened very suddenly. “And I’m not sure. But I should be the one who does tell him.”

 

Magnus nodded and texted Simon, asking him to bring Max home as quickly, but as gently as he could, and to warn him what was waiting.

 

“Have you ever heard of others?” Maryse asked. 

 

Magnus tapped his fingers against the side of his mug, and surreptitiously started to bring the living room lights up brighter. “I’ve been researching. I haven’t found anything definitive. And Shadowhunter lore isn’t particularly accessible to downworlders. Piecing together facts and rumors has let me find… shapes of the holes in the information that are pretty damning.”

 

“Meaning?”

 

“My best guess is that this has happened periodically— maybe even cyclically— and that the shadowhunter who can’t bear runes was…” Magnus stopped. He wasn’t completely sure of this. He was just mostly sure. And he hadn’t mentioned this theory to Alec yet, and didn’t like to say it with Max on his way back. He glanced at the map he’d magicked up for Maryse and saw that Max and Simon were still sitting in the cafe. 

 

Maryse knew what the Clave was capable of though. 

 

“I’m reasonably sure they were killed, Maryse. Shadowhunters are very protective of the bloodline and runes are… Well. You know better than I do what runes are to Shadowhunters. They couldn’t risk letting whatever gene caused the resistance to runes to stay in family blood lines. So… family trees were… pruned.”

 

Movement caught Magnus’s eye. It was the map. Simon and Max were on their way back. 

 

Maryse seemed to have noticed this too. She wiped her eyes and straightened her back. “Have you told Alec about this theory?” she asked. 

 

“No.”

 

“I suppose if I asked you to lie to him about it you would refuse?”

 

“Yes,” Magnus replied. 

 

Maryse nodded and took a long draft from her tea cup. “I wish you hadn’t been taking such good care of him,” Maryse whispered. 

 

Magnus scoffed. “I apologize if the care I’ve shown your children makes it harder to hate me.”

 

He watched as Maryse opened and closed her mouth, clearly fighting for the right words to wrap around some question. “Tell me that Alec is actually important to you.”

 

“What other motivation could I possible have for all of this, Maryse? I hate you and Robert, certainly, but you should know enough about my history to be assured that if all I wanted to do was humiliate shadowhunters, I would never do it like this. And I absolutely wouldn’t involve the Branwell girl.”

 

“We’re the nearest Institute,” Maryse whispered. 

 

“Distance means nothing to the inventor of the portal. I could go to India, or Russia, or Paris as easily as I could go to the next room.”

 

“What do you and Alec do when he stays here?” Maryse asked carefully. “I mean… other than…”

 

Magnus wasn’t sure if he should be offended, horrified, or concerned that Maryse had asked him that question. He was about to snap that it was none of her business when she looked up at him with an expression he recognized from her children. The face that was just asking him to make something they didn’t understand seem… okay. 

 

“We make dinner,” Magnus said with a shrug, keeping his voice just close enough to his High Warlock of Brooklyn voice to avoid feeling like he might be bonding with Maryse Lightwood. “We listen to music. We talk about how things are going at the Institute. We look for ways to track Jace. Last night we read on the couch with the victrola going while Max tried to draw us. The night before that we rented a movie. We haven’t done anything that could possibly have any terrible lasting effect on Max.” 

 

There was a knock at the door. Magnus snapped his fingers to open it and Simon and Max walked in. Magnus could tell by the clenched teeth expression on Max’s face that Simon had, as requested, told Max that his mother was here to see him. 

 

“Hey Mrs. L,” Simon called as he and Max walked into the main room. At the look Maryse gave him, Simon quickly adopted a dour expression and continued. “Mrs. Lightwood. Ms. Lightwood. Shadowhunter Lightwood?”

 

“Stop talking,” Magnus suggested. 

 

“Hi, Mom,” Max said quietly. Fear was written so clearly across his face it make Magnus ache to see it. He was surprised that he felt bad for Maryse as she saw it too. 

 

She moved slowly down to her knees and opened her arms. “Hi, baby.”

 

Max rocked forward and back, as though his body wanted to take the step, but the fear wouldn’t let him. 

 

“I’ve been so worried about you,” Maryse added. The tears were clear on her face and in her voice, and Max moved forward this time, wrapping his arms around her neck. They both started to cry. 

 

Magnus tapped the vampire’s elbow. “Let’s give them a little bit of privacy.”

 

The two of them moved into the kitchen, where they were just out of sight, and Simon could hear perfectly well, even if Magnus couldn’t. Maryse had clearly had some time to think about how she affected her children… but Magnus certainly wasn’t going to put himself in a position to have Alec come home later and demand to know what had happened between Maryse and Max, and not be able to tell him what had transpired. 

 

With a guilty jolt, Magnus realized he’d been so preoccupied since his wards went off he hadn’t informed Alec about Maryse coming over at all. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, shot off a text saying that Maryse was there talking to Max and Magnus would tell Alec all about it later. Then he set a timer for thirty minutes. He had a feeling he wouldn’t have to kick Maryse out after the time allowed by the contract, but it was prudent to have the safety net available. 

 

“I think I got through to him,” Simon said. “A little, anyway.”

 

“Yeah?” Magnus asked. “What did you talk about?”

 

“I told him about how I never planned to be a vampire, and how hard it was to get used to it and how I thought it would ruin my life, but it’s already not that bad.” Simon brought his hands up to his chest. He was holding something Magnus hadn’t noticed before. “It got awkward when he asked me about my family… but I turned the conversation back to comic books.”

 

“What do you have?” Magnus asked. 

 

“Oh this?” Simon held out an ugly wooden doll, a little longer than his hand. “It’s a toy shadowhunter. See the runes and the little sword?”

 

“Is this Max’s?”

 

“Yeah. It was in his back pack,” Simon said. “He said Jace gave it to him last year. I guess Jace’s father gave it to him. The only toy he never had, and the only thing Jace owned that wasn’t a weapon. Pretty bleak, huh?”

 

Magnus held his hand out for the doll and Simon handed it over. 

 

He held up a hand, to keep Simon from continuing to speak, as the vampire was wont to do, and concentrated. 

 

The flash of Jace, fighting, slashing was visceral and complete. 

 

He’d found it. The one thing that would allow them to track Jace. 

 


	17. S.N.A.F.U. 2

There were Right and Wrong ways to be a Shadowhunter, Alec told himself as he hurried down the subway steps. 

He’d grown up knowing that, because he’d grown until about the age of ten he’d been told that nothing he’d done was quite right. After the age of ten, Jace had always been around to prove to Alec in a thousand different ways how Alec would never be the right type of Shadowhunter. 

Jace was younger, but ahead of Alec in every single area of training. 

Jace was fearless in a way Alec couldn’t be, jumping higher, swinging harder, daring more than Alec could ever bring himself to. 

And Jace had made Alec realize that there was something about Alec that was different than other Shadowhunters. Too different not to be wrong. 

That’s why Alec had always worked so hard. He’d never be fiercest, fastest, strongest, that would always be Jace, but he could be the most reliable. He could be the hardest working. He could be the most dutiful. Strict adherence to the rules, meticulously doing all the things that right type of Shadowhunter did, would make up for the fact that he was, at a basic level, not actually the right type of Shadowhunter

But it hadn’t worked. He’d done everything right. He’d done everything he’d ever been asked to do… and in the end he hadn’t been able to go through with it. 

Because standing up at that altar, seeing Lydia’s grim look, Magnus’s gentle dare, and his mother’s absolute horror, Alec hadn’t been able to justify what he was about to do. Was it right to take advantage of Lydia’s grief after someone she had actually wanted to marry had died? No. Was it right for his parents to demand that he patch up the family legacy after they had disgraced themselves in the circle? No. 

And Magnus… 

The more time Alec spent with Magnus, the more he was realizing that it couldn’t be wrong. Bad things made you feel bad. Junk food made you sick. Alcohol gave you a hangover. 

Magnus was keeping him going. The way he had just brought Max into his loft. The way he was helping find Jace. The way he smiled at Alec and made everything easier. The way his voice was different when he talked to Alec. And yeah, the way he touched Alec and the way Alec felt afterward. The warm bliss and couple goddamn moments of peace he felt laying naked in Magnus’s bed, his head resting on Magnus’s shoulder, their fingers twined? 

Something that always made him feel good couldn’t be bad. Couldn’t be wrong. 

And if there was nothing wrong with him… why did he have to fight so hard to be what the Clave wanted him to be? Why did the Clave get to decide that he wasn’t the right type of Shadowhunter? And he’d done the research. Simon’s one in ten statistic was true, and it was old, and things were changing. It was probably more than one in ten now. Just because Alec was the only gay shadowhunter right now, didn’t mean he was going to be the only gay shadowhunter forever. 

Alec had lived his entire life waiting for someone to talk about the Clave Lydia just had.

Like they could be wrong. 

Like they could be changed. 

Like something could be changed. 

Which was probably why, as soon as Lydia had laid out the fact that she expected his mother to *give* them the Institute, he had shut down. 

He hadn’t even replied to her. He’d just turned and walked out of her office with his head buzzing. She’d texted him three times since he’d left her office, and he hadn’t even looked at his phone. He wouldn’t know what to say. 

Protect your family. It was his most basic instinct. Like pulling away from a hot stove or reaching for an arrow. It was just something he did. 

Lydia had asked him to depose his mother. And his first thought had been “No. Absolutely not.”

And it had been immediately followed by “but…”

If he was in charge of the Institute, he could protect Izzy. He could protect Max. He could protect Magnus. He could protect Lydia. 

None of those things had been the first reason that came to mind. The first justification Alec had thought of for ousting his mother from the most important thing in her life was that he was still so angry with her for the way she had talked to him about the wedding. Everything she’d said about him fulfilling his duty while her own marriage fell apart. Everything she’d said to him about not recognizing him anymore. Everything she’d said making the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, all about her. 

So he’d left with Lydia calling after him. He’d gone to his room, he’d gotten his still packed overnight bag, grabbed Simon’s blood out of the fridge, and headed directly to Magnus’s.

It was only now, as he got off the train and went back up to the street, occurring to him that he could have called and asked to be portalled over. 

But the time and handful of gulps of fresh air were good for him. Magnus did make him feel better, but it wasn’t on Magnus to be there just to make him feel better. Besides, Magnus had spent all damn day making Max feel better. How much more could Alec ask for?

He stopped outside the door, and pulled out his phone. Lydia wanted to know how upset he was and if he was turning her into the Clave. He stared at her messages for a few moments before ultimately tapping out. 

This is a lot on top of some bad news about Max today. I need time to think about what you said. I’m on your side. 

He slid his phone back into his pocket and pressed his fingers to his temples, dragging in a couple breaths. 

And that’s when he heard. 

The strange distortion of magic inside, followed by chaos and shouting. 

Then a scream. 

He burst through the door, already stringing an arrow. 

“You hurt him! You hurt him!” Max was screaming over and over. 

“Max, I’m fine,” Magnus was calling back, loudly with a strained and forced calm that Alec hadn’t heard from him since Alec had told him that he was getting married. 

Alec threw himself forward into the loft, shoulder checking Simon as the vampire rushed for the door. 

It took a few moments before the scene in front of him even made sense. His mother was standing in the middle of Magnus’s living room, with a seraph blade in one hand. Magnus had his back to the door, and to Alec, but Alec could see the blood splashed across his white sleeve. Max was standing between Magnus and their mother, arms out as though shielding the warlock, still shrieking. 

Alec pulled the bow a little tighter and stepped into view. 

“What the hell is going on?”

His mother looked up from Max to Alec. The shock on her face as she looked from Max screaming at her with his arms flung out to Alec with an arrow ready to fly was astounding. Alec had never seen anything like it before. 

She let the seraph blade fall to the floor and held her hands up. 

“Max, Max,” Magnus said, finally looping his unhurt arm about Max and pulling him closer. “Shh.. It’s fine. Watch.”

The glow of magic radiated away from the two of them. 

Alec undrew his arrow and tucked it back into his quiver. 

“And it’s fine now?” Max asked, much calmer now. 

“It’s fine,” Magnus twisted backward to look at Alec. “Hey, everything’s okay.” 

Sudden movement from the corner of the room made Alec reach for his arrows again, but stop just before he grabbed one. 

“Yeah,” Jace said, as he unfolded upwards off the ottoman, staring at Alec. “Everything’s okay.”


	18. Friendly Fire

Maryse had never expected to see that look in her children’s eyes. Max, who half an hour ago had been squeezing her tight, his head tucked against her shoulder, was glaring up at her, screaming. He’d taken a step back from her when she’d moved forward. The second he’d seen blood on Magnus he’d made his alliances very clear. 

Was it the choice or the assumption that hurt more? That her baby would assume she’d gone after the warlock watching over both of them without proper provocation, or that, without any backstory at all, Max had thrown himself between them, to defend Magnus from her, and not the other way around. 

“What the hell is going on?”

Alec suddenly appeared from behind the foyer wall, as Max continued to scream “You hurt him! You hurt him!”

He saw her, he saw the blood on Magnus’s arm, and he kept his arrow trained on her. 

So it was the latter that really hurt. Maryse let the blade fall to the floor and lifted her hands in surrender. 

“Max, Max.”

Magnus’s voice was strained. Max didn’t calm down until Magnus circled an arm around him and pulled him close. Max went with greater ease than he had earlier, when Maryse had tried to hug him. 

“Shh… It’s fine. Watch.”

A crackle of magic came from the warlocks fingers, making the wound disappear. 

No, only seem to. If she focused, Maryse could see the gash under the glamour. 

Alec undrew his arrow and tucked it back into his quiver. 

“And it’s fine now?” Max asked, much calmer now. 

“It’s fine,” Magnus twisted backward to look at Alec. “Hey, everything’s okay.” 

A sudden weird flash of anger overtook Maryse as he spoke. That wound needed attention, and soon. It could be poisoned. Magnus may not be in immediate danger of bleeding out, but it was certainly a possibility without more than a glamour, sooner, rather than later. 

But he didn’t have enough magic to heal himself after helping her save her adopted son, and he was using the little he had left to calm her other two. 

The anger was gone as fast as lighting, leaving a long, pounding thunder feeling behind it. 

Shame.

She heard Jace struggle to his feet behind her, but didn’t turn to him. For one thing, any sudden movement she made was not going to be interpreted well. For another, she couldn’t stand to look at Jace again so soon. Not after the way they’d found him. 

“Yeah. Everything’s okay,” Jace said. 

“Jace…” Alec managed, his jaw dropping, his eyes going wide. 

Jace strode past her, arms outstretched, and fell against Alec. Alec’s eyes clenched shut as they clung to each other. 

“Max, can you get a glass of water for Jace?” Magnus asked. 

Max nodded, and Magnus lifted the arm he still had wrapped around him. 

Magnus’s skin was going ashen, and the glamour wasn’t quite managing to cover the blood dripping onto the couch. Maryse looked at the wet splotches on the ostentatious blue velvet, and bit her lip. When she looked up, Magnus’s eyes were on her, only for a moment before he looked back down. 

She extended her hand to him, under his gaze, so he could see it and hopefully understand what she was offering without speaking, and before anyone saw her. 

He glanced back up, shocked and questioning. She pursed her lips and stuck her hand out a further half inch. With a nod, Magnus took it and Maryse barely managed to stifle a gasp as she felt the energy moving out of her body and into his. 

“How?” She heard Alec ask in a shaking voice. 

“I was actually going to ask that myself. Mom and Magnus just… showed up on Valentine’s ship.”

“What? That’s… how?”

Maryse looked up, the words not quite coming to her. She saw Jace duck down and come back up with Max in his arms. 

With a shaky breath, Magnus dropped her hand. Only she noticed the quick motion he made over his arm before he stood up. 

“Max saved the day,” Magnus announced in that aggravatingly charming statesmen voice he so often used. He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out the little wooden soldier, displaying it for the room. “With this.”

He reached across the couch, holding the little toy out to Max, who took it from him and squeezed Jace before Jace put him back on the ground. 

“Why don’t you go give Simon the blood you brought and… Maryse and I will get everyone brought up to speed,” Magnus told the room. 

For just a moment, Maryse considered not doing it. Not following the protocol. Not adhering so strictly to the Clave law. Sitting here in Magnus’s living room and doing what she had just watched him do. Put her family first. 

She wished she could. She wished it was the right thing to do, and not just the easy thing. 

But it was not. And she could not. 

She stood. 

“No. We all need to go back to the Institute and immediately debrief with Pangborn and Lydia.”

***

Seriously, Lydia thought, gripping her warm coffee mug tightly. We can’t have one fucking day without a disaster around here?

Pangborn took his seat deliberately, setting his legal pad in front of him and squaring it carefully, then setting his pen at the top of it. “From the beginning.”

“I have been clear with you and with Lydia that Magnus Bane and I have been seeking a way to track Jace Wayland, by finding an object with a significant tie to him or Valentine, or ideally, both,” Alec said. 

“You have,” replied Panborn. “And I assume that object was found?”

“A little toy soldier,” Jace said. “Valentine made it for me when I was little. I gave it to Max a couple years ago. I guess he kept it in his bag.”

“He showed it to Simon, the Vampire, earlier tonight,” Maryse said. “Simon showed it to Magnus. Magnus was able to track Jace to a location with enough accuracy to allow us to portal there.”

“Over water?” Pangborn sounded skeptical. “How?”

“Magic,” Alec answered with a sneer. 

Lydia tried to silently convey that right now was not the time to be a little shit. 

“Mr. Lightwood. Did you portal to the ship with your mother and Warlock Bane?”

“No. I did not.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Alec looked like he was going to fight, but only for a moment. Glowering, he stood and stomped out of the room. 

***

An electric, stinging sort of energy was under Alec’s skin and his first thought was to call Magnus, who picked up on the first ring. 

“Hey,” Alec breathed. “I just got kicked out of the meeting. Sorry I got swept out so fast. Are you alright? What happened.”

“I’m fine,” answered Magnus. “Max is fine, he and Simon are watching some sort of comic book movie.”

“How? How did you do it? How did you find Jace, how did you get him back?”

And Magnus told him. About tracking Jace, about some quick calculation and a some what experimental potion and a jump to a ship that they only made because of how large the ship was. Landing below decks, right next to a guard, who had managed to slash Magnus before Maryse had killed him. 

Finding Jace. How badly beaten he was. Losing more time than was smart while Maryse had set iratzes over his skin. Battling their way up to the deck so they could portal back. 

“We’d been back for… maybe a minute when you walked in,” Magnus said. 

Alec didn’t know what to say. None of this… when he’d asked Magnus to help him find Jace, he’d never imagined putting Magnus in harm’s way as part of actually recovering Jace. As for his mother and Magnus in battle together, on the same side… it taunted credibility. 

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Alec finally managed. 

There was a pause on the other side, Alec could imagine Magnus starting to joke and changing his mind. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Alec responded. “Okay well—“

The door to the debrief room opened. 

“Shit. Magnus, I have to go, I’ll talk to you tonight?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Alec ended the call and tucked his phone into his pocket. His mother walked out first, and Alec felt his mind go blank. What could he possibly say to her? 

She was several steps out the door before he realized that Pangborn was guiding her out, his hand wrapped tightly around her bicep. 

Her hands handcuffed behind her back.


	19. Prisoners of War

In the short time they’d known each other, Magnus had picked out several things about Alexander that hurt to see in action. The way Alec was effortlessly confident when there were dangers and demons around, but struggled so much to find what he wants when it was for himself. The way he ran himself ragged for everyone around him. The way he’s still a little hesitant to curl up to Magnus in the morning. Like they have to start over every day. 

 

So when Magnus picks up the phone and hears Alec's carefully constrained voice, the one he uses when he is absolutely at the edge, Magnus’s heart breaks a little.

 

Maryse and Jace have been put in custody in the City of Bones. They aren't technically under arrest, but given their prior associations with Valentine, Lydia and Pangborn though it was prudent to have them both out of the Institute and under careful watch. Just in case they’d been sent back with any instructions from Valentine.

 

“They’ll be questioned in the morning, with the Mortal Sword,” Alec went on, tightly. “I’ve been asked to stay and help develop the interrogation.”

 

Magnus attempts to force the rage out of his voice. He’s not as good at it as Alec is. “Are you staying there tonight?”

 

“I think so. Can you… can you think of something to tell Max? I’m sorry, I know I haven't left him there at night before, I can ask Izzy if she—”

 

“Alec? Don't worry. We’ll be fine. Just… go take care of your family.”

 

“Okay,” replied Alec. There was a strangely…heavy pause. “Um. Right. I… I’ll text you.”

 

They said goodbye. Magnus tucked his phone into his pocket and turned to the living room. He was relieved to see that Max was asleep against the arm rest. He’d needed so much sleep lately. 

 

Simon looked up at him, worried. Of course he’d heard everything. 

 

Magnus put a finger to his lips. 

 

“Give it a few more minutes,” he said, under his breath so that only a vampire would be able to hear him. “Until we’re sure he’s asleep and I can carry him to his room.”

 

Simon nodded, but bit his lip. 

 

“Actually… can you grab my bag for me?”

 

Magnus retrieved it from the door and handed it off. 

 

“I didn’t want to… make everyone more upset earlier, but I remembered this on my way over, and I thought… I wasn’t sure if anyone would know if it meant anything.”

 

Simon pulled his bag open  and held it open to Magnus. “There’s a glass, can you grab it?”

 

Magnus peered into the ratty messenger back and pulled out a cheap glass tumblr. Either soundlessness or enhanced hearing was burned into the side, Magnus had never been able to keep those two straight. 

 

“Max made it last week. He put it up against a hole in the wall so he could listen in on a meeting. So… he can use runes. And, uh… it must be Angelic magic. It burned me when I picked it up.”

 

Magnus spun the glass in his hand. 

 

“I didn’t want to say anything cause like… I live in the Institute. There are runes everywhere. I don’t know if they all do things or if they’re just like… the aesthetic or what. But the swords have runes… and like… his little ceremonial robe had—“

 

Magnus tuned Simon out and put the glass to his ear. In way (a way he wasn’t planning on revealing to anyone, even Alec) he too had Angel blood. 

 

The glass to his ear made Simon’s voice muffled and crackling, like an old radio. 

 

But definitely louder. 

 

Magnus lowered the glass and looked at it for a moment. Shadowhunters worked runes onto everything. That Max could rune other things wasn’t unique. But this glass… 

 

Magnus had never spent any significant time around shadowhunters too young to rune themselves, but he had never seen a tool like this. A normal object made into something else entirely with a  rune. 

 

He doubted the thought occurring to him now had occurred to any of the Shadowhunters in the New York Institute. So focused on tradition. So set in their ways. 

 

Max couldn’t wear runes. And, for the child’s sake, it was best not to hope that some miracle would let him. 

 

But no one had stopped to think about how he could still use runes. 

 

“So… I don’t know,” Simon went on as Magnus pulled himself out of his thoughts. “Maybe we could like… rune up a tee shirt or something for him to practice in.”

 

Except a nerdy fledgling vampire. 

 

“Let me talk to Alec about this,” Magnus said. “Why don’t you head back to the Institute? It’s late. I should get Max settled for the the night.”

 

***

 

Maryse didn’t trust herself to say anything to Lydia or Pangborn that wouldn’t make things worse. So as they walked she and Jace into the City of Bones and deposited them into adjoining, witch light suffused cells, she stayed silent. 

 

“We’ll have a meal sent down,” Lydia told them. “And we’ll bring the sword for questioning first thing in the morning. We should be able to button all of this up very quickly.”

 

Maryse nodded and settled herself onto the narrow cot. She imagined Jace’s expression to be sullen, but couldn’t tell from his silence, or from Lydia or Pangborn’s relations. 

 

“In the morning,” Lydia concluded, turning and leaving, Pangborn behind her.

 

Maryse waited for their footsteps to fall away, then fell backward onto the cot. The little pillow at the top was small and flat, but at least it smelled of detergent and not mold. 

 

“This is… nicer than I expected a prison cell in the City of Bones to be,” Jace said. He sounded exhausted. 

 

“This is just a holding cell,” Maryse replied. “The actual prison cells are cold and moldy and hellish.”

 

“How do you know— oh.”

 

Maryse felt her stomach flop as she realized her accidental admission. She decided to just move past it. “How are you feeling? You were…”

 

Jace had been a mess when she and Magnus had found him in his room. Badly beaten, fresh cuts and bruises over old ones. She probably should have listened to Magnus, gotten back up to deck and portalled back to the loft and then worked all those iratzes. But… to see you son like that and choose not to help him.

 

She couldn’t.

 

Not after Max. 

 

“Good as new,” Jace said with a yawn. “And you?”

 

“Never better,” Maryse huffed. 

 

She heard shuffling and a squeaking of springs. Good. Jace must be settling in to get some rest as well. 

 

“I…” Jace started. “I missed a lot. Didn’t I?

 

“It’s only been a few weeks,” Maryse replied. She hoped he would drop the subject. It was late, they both needed rest. 

 

He didn’t. “Back at the loft… Alec and Max. And Magnus.”

 

Shit. Those were all of the topics she didn’t want to discuss before trying to sleep through the night in a prison cell.

 

“And… you. You came to save me with Magnus Bane. I thought… I thought you hated him?”

 

Maryse sighed, brought her hands to her face, and started to push back her cuticles to give herself something to concentrate on other than telling Jace about all of the insanity that had ensued since Alec’s wedding. 

 

“Magnus and Alec are still…” Jace trailed off. “They must be. Right?”

 

“I…” Maryse started, and stopped when she realized she didn’t know how to go on. She had no idea what Magnus and Alec even were. How could she comment on whether or now they still were what Jace had assumed… or known them to be. “Before the wedding,” She started, not sure where to go. 

 

Jace answered even though there hadn’t been a real question. “Alec… I don’t think anything actually happened, but Alec… I could tell Alec thought about him a lot.”

 

Maryse digested this. Why kiss the warlock in front of everyone if there wasn’t even a relationship? “Alec has been staying there,” she said.  “With Magnus. A lot. Every night for weeks. Actually.”

 

“Good.” Jace sighed. “That’s good.”

 

The relief in Jace’s voice surprised Maryse. “Good?” She asked gently. 

 

Jace didn’t answer at first, then, “And Max? What was Max doing there?”

 

Maryse opened her mouth to answer, and only a short, rough squeak escaped. 

 

She hasn’t had to tell anyone this. Everyone in the Institute saw what happened. She’d been living with her own horror and the horror of everyone around her. She’d heard the way people whisper about the awfulness of what happened to Max. The way they openly scoffed at the fact that she was entirely impotent to bring her son home from where he’s staying: with Magnus Bane. High warlock of Brooklyn. Half demon Lothario who had dragged her oldest son off the path to being the youngest head of an Institute in seventy years and into his bed. And, they would add darkly “Imagine what his intentions could be for the younger one.”

 

“Max…” She finally answered. Her rough voice faded out and she tried again. “Max is…”

 

“What happened?” Jace asked. “I felt something through the bond a couple weeks ago. And I saw Max was injured at the loft. What… Maryse, what happened to Max?”

 

“His… his rune ceremony,” Maryse finally managed. She tried to work though the words as fast and as clinically as she could. Stating the facts before the feeling behind them could break in. 

 

But Jace kept interrupting. Every question he asked was more bewildered than the last as he demanded to know all the answers that Maryse hadn’t been able to find for herself since that night either. How could that have happened? Had it ever happened before? Would Max recover? 

 

Would he ever be a Shadowhunter?

 

“Magnus— Magnus is the most powerful warlock in the country, isn’t he? He’s… he’s working on a cure, right? That’s why Max is at the loft? Right?”

 

Maryse gave up pretending that she was in control and let a sob break loose. 

 

“Mom?” Jace asked again.

 

“Max has been staying at Magnus’s because he’s afraid to come home,” Maryse admitted. “He… we left him alone in his room for a second— _a second_ — and he woke up, grabbed a bag and ran. Magnus… Magnus found him fighting off a demon, and called Alec and Alec got a writ of temporary shelter from Lydia because he… Max was so afraid of coming home… _of seeing me_ … that Magnus and Alec decided it would be best if he stayed with Magnus.”

 

What felt like several minutes passed. 

 

“They…they are happy,” Jace said. “When I would go back to my cabin on the ship I’d…try to sink into Alec’s side of the bond. He’s never been happy like this before.”

 

“I know.”

 

She said it without thinking. But it was true. Alec was different every day. More relaxed. More confident. He stood up straighter. 

 

He smiled now. 

 

Could she love that and hate the reason for it?

 

Could she hate Magnus Bane for saving Jace, comforting Max and grounding Alec during such an incredibly difficult time?

 

Could she keep hating Magnus Bane for being right about her twenty years ago?

 

“He’s good to Max,” Maryse admitted. “He’s… getting in home visits from the silent brothers, and Magnus has been making him potions for the pain. I didn’t expect Max to be so… okay, when I saw him tonight.”

 

“He’s tough.”

 

“You should get some rest, Jace,” Maryse told him. “You’ve been through enough.”

 

“Yeah,” Jace said with a sigh. 

 

Maryse unfolded the thin infirmary blankets at the bottom of her own cot and wrapped them around herself. On the other side of the cell wall, she could hear Jace doing the same. 

 

A few moments of quite passed, where she hoped the poor boy had just instantly passed out from he exhaustion. 

 

“Maryse?” Jace asked. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“Where’s Robert?”

 


	20. Alliances

 

By the time Alec, Pangborn, and Lydia completed their questions and wrapped up the meeting, the three of them had gone through a pot of coffee and had each activated a wakefulness rune. Pangborn was clearly satisfied. Lydia seemed determined.

 

 Alec was simply exhausted. All he wanted in the world was to go to bed, and let this night sink behind him. He was most of the way to the front door of the Institute before he realized that he had planned to sleep here tonight. At the Institute. In his own bed. 

 

Like someone may be expected to do occasionally when they had been dating someone for less than a month. Still hadn’t called them his boyfriend. Hadn’t _technically_ had sex yet, and still wasn’t comfortable talking about what they did do to anyone who didn’t sleep in the bed he had been imagining as he staggered out of the meeting. 

 

Alec blinked owlishly at the darkened oak door that lead out into the Institute grounds. 

 

If he called, Magnus would probably portal him over. 

 

The thought made Alec feel like a complete asshole.

 

Fuck.

 

Fuck!

 

They’d gone on like… two dates. How had everything become about his bullshit? For Angel’s sake, Magnus was alone with Max tonight. How was that okay? “Okay Magnus, I’ll blow you off and not listen to you when you’re clearly right about what I’m doing to myself for months, then lets get dinner a couple times while I make you comfort me over Institute shit that isn’t your fault. Then just.. Take care of my shockingly injured brother. For Weeks. While I’m dealing with more Institute shit.”

 

For fuck’s sake, tonight Magnus had dealt with Alec’s mother, and gotten slashed open rescuing Alec’s parabatai. 

 

Alec closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face. 

 

He’d find a way to pay Magnus back for everything. 

 

In the morning. 

 

He turned from the door and trudged toward his own room, before another obligation— no, promise— occurred to him. 

 

He let out a groan he was glad no one was around to hear, and switched directions again. 

 

**

 

The banging against the door made Isabelle jolt out of bed, up into the darkness of her room.

 

Her hand clattered through the odds and ends on her nightstand, taking only moments to grab an adamas hair stick and turn it into a dagger with a flick of her wrist. 

 

“Izzy?” 

 

The sound of her brother’s voice banished the fear that had rushed through her at the knock, but only for a moment. What was Alec doing here so late at night? 

 

She stumbled out of bed, heart pounding, and threw open the door to her quarters. “What happened?” She demanded, her brain still only half awake. “Is it Max?”

 

“No, Max is fine,” Alec said. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye. “Maybe I should have come by in the morning. We just… we had a deal right? We’re protecting the family together?”

 

Isabelle was definitely awake now. She pulled her door open and waved Alec in. “We are. What’s going on?”

 

Alec rubbed his eyes again, and Izzy guided him over to her bed. Uncharacteristically, as soon as Alec sat, he threw himself backward with a sigh. Isabelle dropped into the chair near her closet.

 

“I’m going to start with the good news for once,” Alec sighed. “Jace is safe. And he’s back.”

 

“What?” Isabelle demanded. 

 

Alec told her about going to Magnus’s to check in with him and Max, only to find a chaotic scene around Magnus, Max, their mother and then finally, a whole and healthy Jace. 

 

“How?” Isabelle demanded, and then, when Alec told her what he knew about the mission to recover Jace added only— “Magnus… and Mom.”

 

“Yeah. Magnus and Mom,” Alec confirmed with a yawn. “But before we managed to talk about it at all, Mom insisted that we all immediately come back here and make a report to the Clave. I got kicked out of the meeting, and Mom and Jace, apparently, agreed to spend the night in the City of Bones to prove they aren’t working for Valentine. We’re going to question them in the morning.”

 

“Okay,” replied Isabelle. She grabbed her phone off her night stand and checked the time. Three am.

 

Alec sighed again, clearly there was even more. “Do you… do you think our mother is a bad person?”

 

Isabelle opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I think you might be too tired to be asking that question.”

 

“Before I go down to interrogate Mom and Jace tomorrow… there’s stuff you should know. Lydia… Lydia told me today that Pangborn is part of a group within the Clave that think Shadowhunters need to start working _with_ downworlders.”

 

Isabelle wasn’t sure what to say to that. She stayed quiet and Alec kept going. “I guess… with everything going on right now there is some… shifting in the upper levels of the Clave. That idea is gaining more traction. I mean… it would be complicated, but at the rate we’re going…”

 

A creeping sensation started working its way up Isabelle’s spine. Something was strange. Even as exhausted as he must be, it was weird to hear Alec talking like this. Rambling. Thinking out loud instead of keeping everything folded tightly inside until something set him off and he yelled at someone, usually about something unrelated to whatever was really bothering him. 

 

Another sigh. “Lydia said that Pangborn is trying to make our Institute… a pilot, I guess? He’s trying to make Mom give up the institute. And hand it to Lydia and I.”

 

“But you already—“

 

“Without getting married,” Alec added. Almost as though it was an after thought. “We could live our lives, and get what we wanted.”

 

Isabelle waited to see if there was more. Alec didn’t say anything else. In the dark, she couldn’t make out his expression, but she could see the smallest glint indicating Alec’s open eyes. 

 

“Okay… Alec, that sounds perfect. What’s wrong?”

 

“Mom,” Alec answered, finally sitting up. “And precedent, and sending messages. She’s in a jail cell right now. Because she went to go save Jace from Valentine. And she used to be in the Circle. And… I know… We both know how she talks about downworlders. But she went with Magnus. And she tolerates Simon. And… just… How is it going to look, Isabelle? Lydia and I get the Institute, after Mom is forced out— for what? Failing to keep her marriage together? Three public humiliations from her kids? Is the word in Idris going to be that we are trying to change pointless traditions and let people live and try to stop the Clave from being so oppressive that more and more people rebel against it until we’re all dead?” Alec sucked in a long breath. “Or are we confirming to the whole Clave that all of the Lightwood siblings are such abominations that it justifies firing the woman who raised them? Dating downworlders, being… being gay and not being able to bear…” Alec’s voice snuffed out, suddenly, like a teeny flame extinguished by a gust of wind. 

 

Isabelle stood, went to her nightstand and turned on the light. Alec flinched, his hands flew up to his eyes. Isabelle sat next to him, and wrapped her arm around his waist. She pretended that she couldn’t hear him fighting to get his voice under control.

 

“I should have told you yesterday, when we found out,” Alec said. “Max… the injuries acted up again, and we had to call in Brother Zachariah and get a new pain potion and do some tests. The Silent Brothers… they don’t think Max will ever be able to…”

 

Isabelle’s throat was too tight to swallow. She squeezed Alec a little tighter until she was able to speak again. “Where is he?”

 

“He’s with Magnus. He was already falling asleep when I told Magnus I’d end up staying here tonight. He feels safe there. He… when I got to the loft tonight he was going berserk. Magnus got hurt going after Jace and Max thought Mom was the one who had done it. He threw himself in front of Magnus.”

 

“You guys are taking good care of him,” Isabelle offered. 

 

Alec let out a shaky laugh. “It’s… by the Angel, Izzy, it’s so much. He’s barely spoken the last two days. He’s afraid to come here and face her. And tomorrow… I have to go down to the City of Bones with Lydia and Pangborn and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She may hate me, she may have always put the Clave before anything else… but there’s… fuck it. You were right.” Alec pulled away and marched half way to the door, then turned back toward her, kneading his hands in front of him, like he always did when he was agitated. “You were right. I get protective and I just… The look on her face when I came into the loft tonight. And she went to save Jace without getting back up and she… we were watching over Max together that first night and I just…”

 

“She’s our Mom. You love her. I do too. I mean… I hate her sometimes, but I love her.”

 

Alec went still, and looked down at his hands in front of him. “I’ve spent so much of my life loving her and being angry with her and never having anything come up that forced me to do anything about being stuck in the middle like that. Until Magnus walked in at the wedding and I just… that wasn’t even about her. That was about me, but I was finally so far past caring what her reaction would be. And everything with her has been so much harder since then and now… I have to make a decision. Do I want the Institute badly enough to risk her never speaking to me again? Am I angry enough with her to take away everything she’s worked for, after everything that’s happened in the last few weeks?”

 

Isabelle looked up at her big brother. Who always put other people first, who spent his entire life, up until the last handful of weeks, always being what other people wanted him to be and never being what he wanted to be. All she wanted to do was give him an answer. Take the decision off of his shoulders. But she knew she couldn’t. 

 

_Heavy is the head…_

 

“I don’t know, Alec. But you don’t need to decide now. Get some sleep.”

 

**

 

Magnus woke to a knock at the door. He sighed, stretched and sat up as another knock followed. 

 

“Alec?” Max’s voice was strangely hesitant. “Alec, are you guys awake?”

 

Magnus rocked forward and went to open the door. Max was standing in front of it, already fully dressed, holding his injured arm to his chest. 

 

“Good Morning,” Magnus said gently, setting his hand on Max’s shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

 

Max looked up at Magnus for a moment, then peered around his legs. “Where is Alec?”

 

“Alec had to stay at the Institute last night. Clave Business. I was going to tell you, but you fell asleep before he called.”

 

Max bit his lip and pulled his arm a little tighter to his body. 

 

“Do you need some of that pain potion again?” Magnus asked, praying that the child’s arm hadn’t split open again. It was heartbreaking to think that he would be so used to something like that already. 

 

Max looked down at Magnus’s bare feet. “Umm… maybe a little. But… can you… Are you allowed to take me to the Institute?”

 

“You want to go to the Institute today?” Magnus watched as Max pulled himself a little tighter together, and finally looked up with his jaw set. 

 

“I want to train today.”

 

Magnus nodded, a little aghast. “Why don’t I make you breakfast, and we can call him?”

 

Max gave him a grim smile, and turned toward the kitchen. After a few steps he paused. 

 

“How is _your_ arm?”

 

“It’s fine, Max.”

 

Max nodded. “Good.”


	21. Recuperation

It was the smell that threw Jace off more than anything. The Institute was his home. It wasn’t supposed to have a smell. He’d never noticed one before. But as he walked through the front door with Alec, he was assaulted with the smell of glass cleaner and sword polish and the whole miasma of people’s hair products, soap, perfume, and deodorant. 

 

The fact that he had been away for so long that his senses weren’t dulled to the array of odd scents contained within his home upset Jace enough that Alec must have been able to feel it. He set his hand to Jace’s shoulder and said, gently, “Let’s get some breakfast.”

 

Jace just nodded, and allowed himself to be lead through the op center, down a few familiar back hallways and into the kitchen. Alec guided him into a chair at the table, went to the fridge and started to pull things out. 

 

“How are you?” Jace asked, after a few moments spend staring at the slightly battered varnish of the kitchen table. 

 

“How am I?” Alec sounded amazed by the question. “I’m fine. Are you kidding? How are _you_?”

 

“No.” Jace shook his head. “Not yet.” He would tell Alec at some point. About the ship and Valentine and learning that his father had been experimenting on him. But not right away. He wanted at least a few hours to sink back into life here before he had to blow it all apart. 

 

“Okay.” Alec started going through the cupboards. Jace didn’t look up, but he could hear the tinkle of plates and cups moving.

 

“How is… everything. Tell me about you and Magnus. You and Mom.”

 

The tinkle of plates stopped. “Did you and Mom talk about Magnus?”

 

“A little.” Jace looked up. 

 

“What did she say?”

 

Jace paused and resisted the urge to crack his neck. He hadn’t slept well and then he’d been holding himself so tight all morning. Waiting for the interrogation, going through the interrogation, feeling Alec’s anguish through the bond. Now, with Alec very carefully not looking at him while he started to slice bread, Jace could feel all of his muscles tensing up again. 

 

Alec scoffed into the silence, not looking up from the task in front of him. “Fine. You don’t have to repeat it then.”

 

“I… look I haven’t been here and I don’t know what she’s been like since the… you know. The wedding. But I think… maybe, she could be coming around.”

 

Alec started slicing bread again. 

 

“I… I’m glad you have him,” Jace went on. He was screwing this up. Badly. He knew it. He was saying it like he was trying not to say that he was glad Alec didn’t want him anymore. And that’s not what he meant. But either he said some thing now, and they talked about it when there was a moment to do it, or he never found another a good time to do it, and maybe Alec would never feel like they could talk about it. After everything. “I can feel how you’re different around him.”

 

“Different?”

 

“Happy.”

 

Alec started tearing lettuce. 

 

“You should…tell me about him. If you want to.”

 

“Did Mom tell you about Max?” Alec asked. 

 

“Yes.” Jace waited to see if Alec was trying to change the subject.  

 

“Max is with Magnus right now,” Alec finally said. “We’ve both been staying there for weeks, and Magnus has just… been there. And I didn’t… I needed that so much. And I didn’t have to ask him for it. And it’s… so much. You know?” Alec sighed, hands moving in front of him while he shook his head. “It’s so much and he just… he’s always there. It doesn’t seem fair.”

 

Alec turned around, a plate in each hand and  sandwich sitting on eat plate. He set one in front of Jace and sat down across from him. They ate in silence for a few minutes. 

 

“You’ve been looking for me,” Jace said. 

 

“Of course I’ve been looking for you. Magnus has used tracking magic on everything you own.”

 

“You took charge of everything to do with Max, right?”

 

“He was afraid to come home, Jace, what was I sup—“

 

“And you’re still in charge of enough of the Institute that you’re going to end up interrogating two family members by the end of the day.”

 

“What is your point, Jace?”

 

“Alec,” Jace started slowly. “Why do you take care of people the way you do? Why do you burn yourself out for everyone around you?”

 

Alec’s face went tight. He looked up at Jace, like he was about to yell at him, but stopped. Stilled. Took another bite from his sandwhich. 

 

 “How long is Max going to stay with him?”

 

Alec stopped mid-chew, and slowly finished and swallowed before answering. “What _did_ Mom tell you about Max?”

 

Jace sighed. “She told me about his rune ceremony. And that the silent brothers don’t… don’t think anything is going to change.”

 

Alec nodded, doing that thing he did with his lips when he was unhappy to be in a conversation. “Yes. Max is… Max is probably never going to be able to wear runes.” Alec took another bite of his sandwich. “And Magnus has made it very clear that _Max_ is going to decide when he comes back here.”

 

“So… you’ve been dating for… what? A little over a month and you’ve just… had a ten year old for most of it?”

 

Jace can see Alec clench and release his jaw. “It’s a disaster isn’t it? I mean… he says it’s okay, and I never feel like he’s not telling the truth when I’m with him, but I leave and then… Max stayed there with him last night, because I was working so late here, and Magnus didn’t even—“

 

“Would you really date someone who abandoned a hurting ten year old?” Jace interrupted. 

 

Alec’s head lifted, staring at Jace instead of down into his plate for just a little too long not to be strange, and Jace realizes that Alec wasn’t seeing him as he was now, but the way he was when he had first gotten here. Ten years old, just having seen his father die, not knowing what a family really was. 

 

The way he was when Maryse had decided she couldn’t abandon a hurting ten year old.

 

“No,” Alec finally answers. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

 

Alec didn’t say anything else for a little while, then slowly started to admit things, one detail at a time. He did it in his usual, laconic, Alec way, and Jace got the distinct impression that Alec was only telling him any details at all because Jace had already pushed him this far, and made it clear he wanted to avoid talking about what he’d been experiencing in the meantime. 

 

Alec didn’t exactly admit to any of the things Jace had felt though the bond. That fuzzy, warm, blissful feeling that Jace had borrowed to keep from breaking wasn’t articulated. Not exactly. But Alec did talk about Magnus forcing him to relax sometimes. Convincing him to put himself first every once in a while. The way Magnus took him out for drinks a couple times and made a big deal of it and let Alec feel special and not like he was some guy in his twenties who had never done any of this before while Magnus had lifetimes upon lifetimes of experience. 

 

Alec talked himself out, which took longer than Jace would have expected. 

 

He paused and looked down the crumbs on his plate. “Lydia and Pangborn want me to convince Mom to step down as leader of this Institute.”

 

It took a second for that to sink in. 

 

“Step down,” Jace repeated. 

 

Alec went on with some… nonsense about disagreement in the Clave. About there being factions and infighting and just enough imbalance of power force a huge change. The type of change that would let him overthrow thousands of years of law and tradition, and head up an Institute with Lydia without marrying her. 

 

Jace tried to absorb what Alec was saying… but it was too much on top of everything else. 

 

“So what are you going to do?”

* * *

 

Max’s gut twisted and his hands shook as he packed all of his things into his back pack. After a few moments of deliberation, he crammed all of the comic books that Magnus had gotten him into the bag too. He didn’t think Magnus would mind.

 

He wasn’t sure why he was going back to the Institute. He still didn’t feel like he was really a Shadowhunter. 

 

But he’d done everything right. He’d studied the grey book. He’d trained. He’d memorized runes and practiced kicks and jabs until his muscles were screaming. He’d read all the histories. He could list every demon in North America in alphabetical order. He could recite all the tiers of the structure of the Clave. 

 

Shadowhunters fought demons. Shadowhunters protected mundanes. Shadowhunters trained. 

 

Just because he couldn’t wear runes didn’t mean he couldn’t do those things. 

 

He was afraid. Afraid to walk back into the building where everything had gone wrong. Afraid to walk back into a place completely filled with people wearing the runes he would never wear. Afraid to see the way his mother looked at him again. Like he was broken. 

 

But emotions were distractions, and fear was just an emotion. 

 

Alec had taught him that. 

 

Alec didn’t know that Max had heard him talking to Magnus, when they both thought Max was asleep. Alec hadn’t done anything wrong either, and all the other Shadowhunters looked at him when he walked through the Institute. Their mother was upset that Alec was different too. 

 

But Alec went back to the Institute everyday. Alec went out on demon patrol, and gave orders. 

 

Max could be as brave as Alec. 

 

There was a knock at the door. 

 

“Max?” Magnus asked softly. “Are you ready?”

 

Max zipped up his backpack, and carefully slipped the straps over his arms. His arm really didn’t hurt that badly today. The split skin had looked mostly healed when Magnus had changed out the bandages last night. Red and angry looking, but not bloody anymore. 

 

“We can wait for Alec to come back,” Magnus continued through the door. “I could summon up some lunch first.”

 

Max thought about it for a moment, but forced himself to call back. “No, I’m ready now.”

 

He opened the door and looked up at Magnus, who was dressed differently than usual. More black, less jewelry. All the parts of his clothes longer or higher or stiffer. He almost looked like he was wearing armor. Max wondered for a moment if he was afraid to go into the institute too.

 

Magnus smiled at him. “I’ll make a portal.”

 


	22. Interrogation

Maryse stretched back on her cot and tried to ignore her stomach grumbling. Normally by this point in the morning she would have been up for at least an hour, if not two. She would have had her first cup of coffee with breakfast, and probably would have been starting on her second cup as she went over the previous day’s patrol reports. 

Being bored was worse than being hungry. She had a thousand things to do, and yet, here she was, trapped in a cell for the terrible crime of rescuing her adopted son from a mad man. 

It had been a long time since Maryse had felt so chafed by the rules of the clave. 

She heard footsteps down the hall. With a sigh, she sat up, smoothed her hair and her clothes, crossed her legs and tried to look as unbothered as she could manage. 

Until Alec emerged from the shadows, carrying two plates. 

“Alec,” Maryse managed. She stood up and moved to the bars of her cell, stopping just before she touched them. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a little recorder in my pocket,” Alec said. “So that, if we have to, we can prove to the clave that we didn’t discuss anything that would impact your questioning by the mortal sword.” He sighed, came to the bars and pulled down the little door on the front of the cell and slid the plate through. Maryse took it from him. “And I told Lydia and Pangborn I was coming down here. They’re both wrapped up in something and won’t be down for another hour or so.”

Alec lowered himself to the ground in front of her cell and sat there cross legged, with his plate balanced on his calves. Maryse sat on the edge of her cot with her plate balanced on her knees. 

Alec bit into his sandwich. Maryse bit into hers. 

They chewed. 

“Alec,” Maryse started. 

“-Did you ever love Dad?” Alec interrupted. 

Maryse paused. Alec was upset. He was… unwrapped when he was really upset. It made him blunt. It occurred to Maryse that she had always known this, but never thought about why that might be until now. Normally, she would try to brush that question away, but maybe being in a jail cell made her blunt. 

“Very much.” She said. “At first. Less, after the circle disbanded.”

“When did you stop loving him?”

“When he stopped loving me,” she answered. 

Alec looked up from his sandwich, silent, but still clearly repeating his question. 

Maryse relented. “When I found out he was having an affair. Two weeks before I knew I was pregnant with Isabelle. “

“I’m sorry.”

No one had ever said that to Maryse about Robert. She didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t.

Another silence. 

“You knew… Alec started. “You knew it was possible to survive a loveless marriage.”

Maryse held in a sigh. “I knew you. You wanted to lead an institute. You wanted children. A career.”

“I do want those things.”

“And I didn’t know…” She didn’t know the right way to say it. “You never told me.”

“But you knew.”

“I wondered.”

Alec looked up at her again. They locked gazes until Maryse looked away. “I didn’t understand. But I think I knew.”

Alec nodded. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I just… aren’t you angry?”

“With you?”

“With all of it? Just…why can’t we just… Why do you have to be married to run an Institute? Why can’t the Clave catch up to the world. And… it’s not just that. I mean… I hate Dad for leaving. I can’t imagine how you feel.”

A strange half laugh rumbled out of Maryse. 

“I… It never occurred to me to hate him for leaving. I actually hate him less now that he’s finally gone.” She watched as Alec carefully tucked an escaping tomato slice back onto his sandwich and felt a lump growing in her throat. “I didn’t think that would happen to you,” she whispered. “I didn’t think I was forcing you into what I was living with. I thought we could find you a good match. I wouldn’t have picked Lydia, but I would have said something if I thought you two wouldn’t have ever found some kind of happiness.”

“Yeah,” Alec said. “That’s why I proposed to her. I thought I could make it work. I’m not… I get that…” Alec sighed and threw his sandwich down onto his plate. “I understand that only Isabelle knew for sure. I know that.”

Maryse takes a few bites of sandwich. “If it hadn’t been for Magnus—“

“—I’d be married,” Alec answered. “Probably just starting to accept that I missed my chance at… um. Being happy. Ever.”

Maryse’s first reaction was anger. Shadowhunters weren’t guaranteed happiness. She had been lucky to marry for love and it had only lasted for a couple years. She had known what her duty was and she’d done it. Why did Alec think he had the right to seek out something that had been denied to most of them?

Why would she have wanted him to suffer?

“Jace said that nothing… he told me that you weren’t involved with Magnus before the wedding. Is that true?”

“I stopped the wedding for me, not just because of Magnus,” Alec said. He set his plate down. “I didn’t want to get married. What else have I ever asked for?”

“I know.”

“I love him.”

Maryse sighed. “Alec…love isn’t always enough.”

To her surprise, Alec nodded. “Was duty?”

Maryse stopped, set down her sandwich. “No. It never was. But it was all I had.”

“Mom, I know you and Magnus have history, and maybe you had a good reason to hate him. But is what ever he did bad enough to ignore the fact that he saved Isabelle from the Clave? And he helped you save Jace from Valentine? Max is okay because of Magnus.”

“Simon saved Max,” Maryse cut in before she could stop herself.

Alec looked hurt. “And Magnus has been buying him comic books and making him pain potion and watching movies with him and looking after him for weeks.”Alec sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Magnus has done everything for me. He’s the only reason I’m okay. He found Jace, he helped Max and he… when I’m with him, it’s the only time I get to put everything down. I need him.” Alec sighed. “Tell me you can understand that. You don’t have to understand why it had to be a guy, you don’t have to understand why it wound up being a warlock, but tell me you understand that I need someone who takes care of me sometimes.”

“I…” Maryse started. It wasn’t something she’d ever had. And she had raised Alec not to expect it. She felt like she’d been hit by a wave of cold water. She could imagine the relief that must come with knowing someone else was taking care of things. 

Shit. 

Alec. 

Alec did that for her. 

Alec had taken over watching over Max these past few weeks. Alec ran the Institute when she was away. He’d been keeping Jace and Isabelle in line for years. He was the only person who ever asked her if she was okay. And when she had needed to form an alliance to keep control of the Institute… Alec had marched off and proposed… even though he… was gay. 

Shouldn’t those roles have been reversed? Maryse thought. Shouldn’t she have been there for Alec more often? 

If they were so much alike, shouldn’t she be able to understand him?

“Yes, I understand that.”

Alec nodded. He picked his empty plate back up, pulled the little door on the front of the cell door open and held his other hand out for her plate. She handed it to him. 

“Max came back to the Institute today,” Alec said. “He’s training with Jace. I’m gonna get Pangborn and Lydia to hustle you out of here, we’re going to pretend you were never down here… and you are going to spend some time with Max. You are not going to talk about runes, you are not going to do the thing you do— the good little soldier talk. I suggest you listen to him talk about comic books. He lights up.”

Alec stacked the plates and turned away. 

“Alec,” Maryse called out to him. He turned back to her. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

She wished he didn’t look so surprised when he said thank you.


	23. Rookies

Lydia may not have respected Maryse’s past, how she treated her children, or her slavish obedience to the Clave. 

 

But it was hard to watch Maryse’s interrogation by the Mortal Sword and not be impressed with the woman. She held the sword like it was nothing. She never flinched. She never lost her composure. She didn’t even break a sweat. 

 

Though, when the interrogation ended, Lydia could have done without the way Maryse held her shackles out to be unlocked as though she was presenting her rings to be kissed. Even if Maryse had more than earned her moment of vengeful dignity. 

 

She hadn’t colluded with Valentine. She was above reproach as far as following Clave directives and policies was concerned and she had still been held in a cell for 16 hours and interrogated. 

 

“Thank you for your cooperation Maryse,” Pangborn said. “I’ll have coffee sent to my office, we just have a few more issues to discuss.”

 

Maryse somehow endeavored to stand up even straighter. “Of course. After I speak with my sons.”

 

And she swept out without so much as a backward glance. 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s not exactly… orthodox,” Isabelle managed, looking over what she and Simon had created. It had started out as an old leather jacket that no one had wanted. The lining had been mostly ripped out, the elbows worn to shreds and a few of the snaps beat in so they didn’t close anymore. 

 

Now it was more of a tunic. 

 

“Well… I don’t know a lot about Shadowhunters… but I think the Lightwoods may need to give up on ‘orthodox’ as a descriptor.” 

 

“Right,” Isabelle agreed, too distracted to give in to Simon’s teasing. “It’s also… going to look weird on a ten year old.”

 

Simon shrugged. “If it works he can upgrade when he’s older. I think we did some really great work here. Besides, it’s… cool.”

 

Isabelle nodded. It kind of was. She’d cut a strip from the bottom of the jacket and fashioned it into a higher collar, then replaced the snaps with electum buttons that had been made for some ancestor in the 1800’s but had somehow wound up in her dresser. The ratty acetate lining had been ripped the rest of the way out, and replaced with fabric from an old dress of Isabelle’s, which had been soaked in a protection spell Meliorn had taught her and then dried.

 

She’d tried her best to recreate a picture Simon had shown her from one of the comic books. Some guy in space with a big tree and a green girl and a raccoon. 

 

A guy with a coat that was very cool, if impractically long for fighting. 

 

And then Isabelle had runed the leather for every possibility she could think of. Deflection runes along the collar. Runes for strength and accuracy along the arms. A compass rune over the heart. Speed and night vision and everything else she could think of to keep her little brother safe. 

 

“There’s no way of giving him a healing rune,” Isabelle finally said. 

 

Next to her, Simon was quiet and solemn. “Maybe between now and when he’s old enough to be out on the street we’ll think of something.”

 

Isabelle sighed. “I… what if it doesn’t work?”

 

Simon shrugged. “It’ll still be cool.”

 

“Right.” 

 

A knock at the door pulled Isabelle’s attention from the jacket.  She stepped toward her bed and hurriedly pulled down the covers to hide the coat. It was going to look like she and Simon were just crawling out of the bed, but she was sure someone in this Institute had already insinuated as much. 

 

“Come in!” She called. 

 

It was a shock to see Jace standing in the doorway. Isabelle was walking toward him and throwing her arms around him before she really even had time to register how strangely small he looked. 

 

“Hey,” Jace said quietly, hugging her back. 

 

“Hey, how long have you been back from the City of Bones?” 

 

Jace shrugged and let her go. “A couple hours. I needed some… time. You know. Eat. Shower. Rest.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Jace looked from Isabelle to Simon, and gave him an odd nod of acknowledgement. “I was hoping you would do me a favor.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We can stop whenever you want,” Alec told Max again, as gently as he could manage. 

 

Going directly into training had been a bad idea, in retrospect. It had made perfect sense when Alec first thought of it. It’s what he had always done when something frustrating or upsetting had happened to him. Training let him push all the things that were bothering him to the back of his mind while at the same time letting him improve in all the things he was supposed to be good at. He could turn off the anger, the guilt, the shame for a few hours, and come out the other side stronger, more accurate and deadlier. 

 

The first time Jace had gone out with a girl Alec had punched his hands and knees into lurid painful bruises against the punching bag. The first time one of his missions had really gone south he’d shot arrows through bloodied fingers until Isabelle had seen the blood drops all over his his shirt and freaked out. 

 

It wasn’t until now, watching Max struggle, that Alec began to realize hurting himself was probably not the healthiest coping mechanism. And that, for a child whose hurt was that he might not be enough of a Shadowhunter, working to become a better one wouldn’t allow him to set his problems aside. 

 

“No!” Max barked. “I’m going to get it. I had it the last time we were training. I’m going to get there again.”

 

It was a series they had been working on before Max’s ceremony. A few jabs, kicks and spins. Max couldn’t get the spin to power the kick, which was keeping him from carrying forward into the jab. And the more he stumbled, the more upset he got and the further away he got from the right form. 

 

Alec was about to tell Max not to snap at him, but relented. Max tried it again, and again he didn’t plant his left foot well enough, didn’t power into the spin hard enough, and stumbled out of the landing without the momentum to move into another kick. 

 

Max clenched his fists and let out a noise of frustration that was half a growl and half a closed mouth scream. Just as Alec stood, ready to end the lesson, Max’s watery gaze dropped, and his forehead furrowed. 

 

“Magnus? I thought you left.”

 

Alec spun around. 

 

It was strange to see Magnus here in the Institute. His makeup was darker, harsher. His clothes lacking all the softness and color and sheen that Alec had gotten used to lately. 

 

Magnus shrugged his broad shoulders, made to look all the broader by some sartorial magic Alec couldn’t hope to put his finger on. “Not quite. Lydia and Pangborn wanted to ask me a few question. Nothing sinister,” he added quickly, clearly noticing the way that Alec had stiffened at this announcement. “Just a few questions about Valentine’s set up and location, as best I could remember. If there was any information I could give them that might help them track him, or understand what his next steps would be. I wish I could have been more helpful, but… it was a bit of a smash and grab to get Jace out of there.”

 

“Right,” Alec said. He took a step toward Magnus, but stopped, suddenly hyper aware of the fact that, if they’d been in Magnus’s living room, they would have been standing next to each other. They would have greeted each other with a quick kiss. Magnus might have wound his arm around Alec’s waist or set his hand to Alec’s chest as they talked. 

 

Alec cleared his throat, trying to pull his mind away from a lingering wish to be close enough to smell Magnus’s cologne.  “Um… hey, can we talk for a second?”

 

Magnus nodded. Alec turned back to Max. “Why don’t you take a break, okay?”

 

Fighting the feeling that he shouldn’t be, Alec set his hand over Magnus’s upper arm, and pulled him gently toward the doorway of the training room, and a few steps into the corridor. 

 

“Look, I…” he cleared his throat. What he wanted to say sounded like such a huge thing to admit, and part of him was afraid that it was too huge.  “I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last couple weeks without you. And… I don’t think Max _would have_ gotten through the last couple weeks without you. And… Jace. You saved Jace.”

 

Magnus’s eyes turned sad and serious. “But?” he prompted. 

 

“Umm. But. I feel bad that everything has been about me for weeks. I didn’t want… It’s not the way I wanted things to start.”

 

“Alec, what else were you supposed to-“

 

“Right. I know. But I want to make it up to you. Or show my appreciation. Or… something.”

 

Magnus gave him one of those cautious held-in smiles. “Alright. And how would you like to do that?”

 

Alec bit his lip and felt the blush rising in his cheeks as he replied, “Any way you want me to.”

 

To Alec’s surprise, Magnus’s face clouded for a moment, but he was smiling as he looked up and set his hand to Alec’s chest. “Do you have a suit?”

 

Alec nodded. 

 

“The doors for “La Boheme” at the national opera in Italy open in,” Magnus checked his watch. “23 minutes. What do you say?”

 

Alec grinned. “That is enough time to put on a suit. I’ll text Izzy. Ask her to hang out with Max.”

 

Magnus’s smile was so open and warm that Alec couldn’t help himself. He tipped his chin down, leaned forward and pressed his lips to Magnus’s. And when Magnus opened up to him, he didn’t pull away. He just kissed him back. 

 

He was so focuses on the kiss— the way Magnus pressed back into him, the illicitness of doing this in the Institute where anyone could see— that he didn’t hear the clicking of heels until it was only a few feet away. 

 

Magnus’s hands fell from Alec’s waist as Alec pulled back, forcing himself to do it deliberately. To show off that he was choosing to end the kiss, not ending in a rush as though he’d been caught doing something wrong. 

 

His mother was standing there, her face overly calm, the way it was when she was focused on concealing whatever extreme emotion she was actually feeling. 

 

“I thought I might come up and take over with Max,” she said.

 

Alec was just on the cusp of refusing. Max was still vulnerable. One conversation hadn’t changed who his mother had been for his entire life. But Magnus hand, out of Maryse’s view, snuck back onto his hip. 

 

His mother’s face went rigid, like she was bracing for a rejection, and like, if Alec told her no, Max didn’t want to see her, she would just turn around. 

 

“Okay,” Alec said. “Okay.”

 

“I was thinking ice-cream. I’m told he’s been training all morning.”

 

“Yeah, a couple hours,” Alec said. 

 

Maryse nodded, and looked from Magnus to Alec. “Should we expect you back tonight?”

 

Alec couldn’t stop the heat in his cheeks. “Umm… I’m not sure yet.”

 

“Okay. Well… have a good afternoon.”

 

She turned and walked into the training room. Alec dropped his hand to his side, and let Magnus take it as they walked to his bedroom.

 


End file.
